A bitter light
sprang to her eyes; she tore the wretched sham from her shoulders, and
then wrapping a shawl around her, threw herself heavily and sullenly on
the bed. But inaction was not a characteristic of Minty's emotion; she
presently rose again, and, taking an old work-box from her trunk, began
to rummage in its recesses. It was an old shell-incrusted affair, and
the apparent receptacle of such cheap odds and ends of jewelry as she
possessed; a hideous cameo ring, the property of the late Mrs. Sharpe,
was missing. She again rapidly explored the contents of the box, and
then an inspiration seized her, and she darted into her brother's
bedroom.
That precocious and gallant Lovelace of ten, despite all sentiment, had
basely succumbed to the gross materialism of youthful slumber. On a
cot in the corner, half hidden under the wreck of his own careless and
hurried disrobing, with one arm hanging out of the coverlid, Richelieu
lay supremely unconscious. On the forefinger of his small but dirty hand
the missing cameo was still glittering guiltily. With a swift movement
of indignation Minty rushed with uplifted palm towards the tempting
expanse of youthful cheek that lay invitingly exposed upon the pillow.
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