out and bring her whatever it was she pretended she wanted.

"I had taken my dressing-case from the rack to get out a novel, and
had left it on the seat opposite to mine, and at the end of the
compartment farthest from her. And once when I came back from buying
her a cup of chocolate, or from some other fool errand, I found her
standing at my end of the compartment with both hands on the
dressing-bag. She looked at me without so much as winking an eye, and
shoved the case carefully into a corner. 'Your bag slipped off on the
floor,' she said. 'If you've got any bottles in it, you had better
look and see that they're not broken.'

"And I give you my word, I was such an ass that I did open the case
and looked all through it. She must have thought I _was_ a Juggins. I
get hot all over whenever I remember it. But in spite of my dulness,
and her cleverness, she couldn't gain anything by sending me away,
because what she wanted was in the hand bag and every time she sent me
away the hand bag went with me.

"After the incident of the dressing-case her manner changed. Either in
my absence she had had time to look through it, or, when I was
examining it for broken bottles, she had seen everything it held.

"From that moment she must have been certain that the cigar-case, in
which she knew I carried the diamonds, was in the bag that was
fastened to my body, and from that time on she probably was plotting
how to get it from me. Her anxiety became most apparent. She dropped
the great lady manner, and her charming condescension went with it.
She ceased talking, and, when I spoke, answered me irritably, or at
random. No doubt her mind was entirely occupied with her plan. The end