Punch admits that he jumped a little himself, for they hadn’t heard any footsteps. His grandmother started violently, then called, “Who’s there?” “It’s Victoria,” Punch heard his mother say. “May I come in?” He thought his grandmother made a move to put the pearls back in the safe, but she changed her mind, and answered rather sharply, “Yes, of course. Come in.” He thought the sight of the pearls surprised his mother. “Letting Punch have a gloat over them, are you?” she said. “I’ve had a frightful ride out from town. That’s a beastly train.--I suppose,” she went on, reverting to the necklace, “that you’ve heard what was in the paper. They say you’re going to give them to Judy for a wedding present.” “So Punch has just been telling me,” his grandmother remarked dryly. She didn’t add anything to that, and Punch looked over at his mother. He got the queer impression that she was holding her breath. She seemed awfully tired and worried, anyway. “Well,” she said at last, “I suppose that sort of irresponsibility is what we have to expect from the papers.--Unless,” she went on jerkily, after another pause, “this happens to be the truth.” “I can make it the truth if I like,” the old woman said. “Yes, of course,” his mother remarked. “No one questions that.” Punch was getting uncomfortable. It’s horribly embarrassing to children to be present when their elders quarrel, and of course he was sensitive enough to feel electricity in the air. He brought the lightning down upon himself. “Well, they can’t be given to Judy if they’re stolen by a burglar first,” he pointed out. “Won’t you let me have them, Gran, to hide for you?” She turned upon him furiously. “No, I will not! And I won’t be nagged to death about them either, by you or by any one else.” She whipped around on her daughter-in-law. “Why shouldn’t I give them to Judy?” she demanded. “She’s my own granddaughter, isn’t she?” “Judy says she doesn’t want them ...” his mother began. But his grandmother pounced upon her again. “You’ve been trying to talk her out of it, have you? So that you could get them for yourself? Well, that settles it. She shall have them whether she wants them or not. And once she’s married you’ll find her husband will have something to say about what she does with them. I won’t hear another word about them. Ring for Miss Digby, Punch.” She wheeled her chair forward, restored the pearls to the safe, tugged shut, with a good deal of trouble, the big iron door herself, waving off their proffered assistance, and spun the combination knob. “Don’t try to tell me I don’t keep this locked,” she said. The thing that seemed to be puzzling Punch, when he reported the scene to me, was his grandmother’s sudden change of mind about confiding the pearls to him. “I think she really meant to let me hide them,” he said. “Anyhow she didn’t get mad when I suggested it the first time. But the second time she pretty near blew me out of the room.”