Page:Bedford-Jones--The Mardi Gras Mystery.djvu/37

 just as dear to me as you can be! See you later."

Slipping her mask into place she was gone, not without relief. She knew very well that within half an hour Bob Maillard would be informed that she had accepted gifts of jewels from other men, with all the accompanying implications and additions that imagination could furnish. For, although Bob Maillard wanted very much indeed to marry her his mother had no intention of sanctioning such a union.

"Neither has Uncle Joseph," she reflected, smiling to herself, "and neither have I! So we're all agreed, except Bob."

"Columbine!" A hand fell upon her wrist. "Columbine! Turn and confess thy sins!"

A cry of instinctive alarm broke from the girl; she turned, only to break into a laugh of chagrin at her own fright.

She had come to the foot of the wide, old-fashioned stairway that led to the floors above, and beside her had suddenly appeared a Franciscan monk, cowled and gowned in sober brown from head to foot.

"You frightened me, holy man!" she cried, gaily. "Confess to you, indeed! Not I."