The tension was quickly relieved however by the surprised flush which mantled on Mr.Locket's brow.He fell back a few steps with an injured dignity that might have been a protest against physical violence."Really, my dear young sir, your attitude is tantamount to an accusation of intended bad faith.Do you think I want to steal the confounded things?" In reply to such a challenge Peter could only hastily declare that he was guilty of no discourteous suspicion--he only wanted a limit named, a pledge of every precaution against accident.Mr.Locket admitted the justice of the demand, assured him he would restore the property within three days, and completed, with Peter's assistance, his little arrangements for removing it discreetly.When he was ready, his treacherous reticule distended with its treasures, he gave a lingering look at the inscrutable davenport."It's how they ever got into that thing that puzzles one's brain!""There was some concatenation of circumstances that would doubtless seem natural enough if it were explained, but that one would have to remount the stream of time to ascertain.To one course I have definitely made up my mind: not to make any statement or any inquiry at the shop.I simply accept the mystery," said Peter, rather grandly.
"That would be thought a cheap escape if you were to put it into a story," Mr.Locket smiled.
"Yes, I shouldn't offer the story to YOU.I shall be impatient till I see my papers again," the young man called out, as his visitor hurried downstairs.
That evening, by the last delivery, he received, under the Dover postmark, a letter that was not from Miss Teagle.It was a slightly confused but altogether friendly note, written that morning after breakfast, the ostensible purpose of which was to thank him for the amiability of his visit, to express regret at any appearance the writer might have had of meddling with what didn't concern her, and to let him know that the evening before, after he had left her, she had in a moment of inspiration got hold of the tail of a really musical idea--a perfect accompaniment for the song he had so kindly given her.She had scrawled, as a specimen, a few bars at the end of her note, mystic, mocking musical signs which had no sense for her correspondent.The whole letter testified to a restless but rather pointless desire to remain in communication with him.In answering her, however, which he did that night before going to bed, it was on this bright possibility of their collaboration, its advantages for the future of each of them, that Baron principally expatiated.He spoke of this future with an eloquence of which he would have defended the sincerity, and drew of it a picture extravagantly rich.
The next morning, as he was about to settle himself to tasks for some time terribly neglected, with a sense that after all it was rather a relief not to be sitting so close to Sir Dominick Ferrand, who had become dreadfully distracting; at the very moment at which he habitually addressed his preliminary invocation to the muse, he was agitated by the arrival of a telegram which proved to be an urgent request from Mr.Locket that he would immediately come down and see him.This represented, for poor Baron, whose funds were very low, another morning sacrificed, but somehow it didn't even occur to him that he might impose his own time upon the editor of the Promiscuous, the keeper of the keys of renown.He had some of the plasticity of the raw contributor.He gave the muse another holiday, feeling she was really ashamed to take it, and in course of time found himself in Mr.Locket's own chair at Mr.Locket's own table--so much nobler an expanse than the slippery slope of the davenport--considering with quick intensity, in the white flash of certain words just brought out by his host, the quantity of happiness, of emancipation that might reside in a hundred pounds.
