"This is no time for hysterics, Ivy," Mrs. Cleveland tells her daughter
sharply. "You would do better to rally your strength and calmness, and
consider what you are to do to get back your jewels."
Ivy struggles up to a sitting posture, her pale-blue eyes all drowned
in tears over the loss of her diamonds--the golden calf of her vain
heart's worship.
"If you have nothing to do but ridicule me, you had better leave the
room," cries Ivy, flushing to angriest crimson. "I thought you were
going to suggest something to help me."
"That would be hard to do," Mrs. Cleveland answers, with an
irrepressible angry sneer.
Never in all her life has she been so angry with her silly, petted
daughter.
Ivy bursts into petulant sobs again, bewailing her fate in having such
a hard-hearted mother and wicked husband.
"I will go and see Mr. Noble, if you wish me," Mrs. Cleveland
announces, after a moment's pause.
"Oh, pray do, mamma," her daughter cries out eagerly. "Perhaps you may
get them back for me, if you manage him right. Leslie used to be quite
under your thumb."
"That was long ago," Mrs. Cleveland answers dryly. "But I will do the
best I can to remedy your dreadful mistake."
Still in her street dress, she has only to tie on her bonnet and depart
on her mission.
Ivy, after hearing the door close behind her, lies down again, with a
sigh of relief and a sensation of hope in her breast. She has great
faith in the diplomatic powers of her mother.
After waiting in suspense an hour or two she falls asleep easily on the
corner of the sofa and dreams that she is an eastern queen and that her
robe of cloth of gold is all frosted with sparkling diamonds.
The gray dusk is falling when Mrs. Cleveland re-enters the room. She
stands for some moments looking down at Ivy's wan, sleeping face, with
the trace of tears still on the pale, thin cheeks, then wakes her with
an impatient shake.
"I should have thought that your suspense would be too great to allow
you to sleep so profoundly," she exclaims wrathfully, her ill-temper
hightened by non-success in her errand.
"Oh, mamma, I felt so relieved when you went after Leslie, and so sure
that you would get the diamonds, that I fell asleep without knowing
it," Ivy answers, with some contrition. "But, mamma, you saw him--he
gave them back, did he not?" she continued, eagerly, stretching out her
hand for her treasures.
For answer, Mrs. Cleveland holds up her empty hands expressively, and
Ivy utters a wail of woe.
"What did he say to you?" Ivy inquires, after a little, pausing in her
angry sobs.
"I did not see him. He had gone out, and his servant could not tell me
where," her mother answers.
"Then you will go again to-morrow. He will be at home then," Ivy
exclaims, with renewed hope.
"No, for he is leaving town to-night," is the short reply.
"Leaving town!" Ivy's voice and look are full of consternation.
"Yes, I learned that much by bribing his servant. He is going down into
the country to-night in a hired conveyance, some twenty-five miles or
more."
"For what reason?" Ivy asks, dimly divining a certain significance in
her mother's manner.
"I do not know, but I strongly suspect it is to visit his captive
countess, and present her with your diamonds," Mrs. Cleveland answers,
divining the truth with a woman's ready wit.
"Oh, mamma!" screams Ivy.
"But I intend to follow him," pursues Mrs. Cleveland, "I mean to
checkmate him if I can."
"I am going with you--remember that, mamma," her daughter cries out,
hastily.