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 her mouth, lines which Rollie had never seen there before. She wore a sullen expression, and a passion that was volcanic appeared to smoulder in her eyes. She greeted him rather perfunctorily, as if her mind had been brooding and, after bidding him be seated and sinking herself upon a couch, cushion-piled as usual, shrouded herself again in a state of aloofness which reminded him of the weather when a storm is brooding.

Rollie had expected her to be raging like a wild woman,—alternately hurling anathemas at the thief for having stolen her gems and heaping denunciations upon the police because they had not already captured the criminal and recovered the necklace.

Her apparent indifference to that subject only emphasized to Rollie what he had before observed,—that it was impossible ever to forecast the mind of this woman upon any subject, or under any circumstances. At the same time, the young man was extremely grateful for this abstraction, because it made what he had to do vastly easier.

"I suppose," he ventured huskily, "you are worried to death about your diamonds."

The sentence drew one lightning flash from her eyes, and that was all.

"To tell you the truth, I have hardly thought of them," she snapped.

Rollie sat with open mouth, totally unable to comprehend, staring until his stare annoyed her.

"I say I have hardly thought of them," she repeated, with an asperity entirely sufficient to recall the young man from his amazement at her manner to the real object of his visit.

"But wouldn't you like to get your diamonds back?" he asked perspiringly.

"Of course, silly!" the actress replied, not bothering