Page:More lives than one.djvu/180

 No, I don’t believe he wears a wig habitually. Why should he? He’s a young man.”

“How old?”

“I don’t know exactly. We’ve judged him at twenty-eight or twenty-nine. That’s not old enough for a wig!

“It is in the case of some people. Why do you smile?”

“It’s so funny. If it is his—and if he hasn’t another, and has lost this—how queer he must look. Do you suppose he is bald?”

Miss Cutler shook her own short, thick locks, and then she became serious again. “Where did you get it?” she asked.

Hutchins told her the whole story, and asked her opinion.

“No, it wasn’t Tommy,” she said; “it was some of the boys dressed up for a prank. It doesn’t seem funny to you, I daresay, but the boys do ever so many things that they think are funny, but no one else does.”

“But this funny person took your picture—the little one in the den.”

“That one! Why, that is one of Mr. Locke’s chief treasures. Jamieson painted that—how dare anybody steal it! Can you get it back?”

“But perhaps it was Mr. Locke himself who took it. He would have a right to, you know.”

“Yes,” and again she blushed that soft, pretty pink.

“Where’s his lucky piece?” asked Hutchins, suddenly. It was his theory that these suddenly sprung queries brought results before the victim was aware of it.

“What lucky piece?”

“The one you took from Mrs. Barham’s hand.”

He could see the effort she made—but this time it was successful. She conquered her emotion, she controlled her voice and she said calmly, “Mr. Hutchins, you spoke