“Once you pay, madame, you may not come again,” he smiled.  “I am superstitious.  I will not take your money till the last moment.”

On the third day, however, Angela decided that she must go.  Her father’s country called, with a voice she could hear above the music of the Southern town, the laughter of the pretty French girls and the chatter of black and brown babies who babbled a language which was neither French, Spanish, nor English, but a mixture of all.  She bought more things of Monsieur Bienvenu, and also in other curiosity shops which she dared not mention to him, since his one failing was a bitter jealousy of rivals.

“Where is my gold bag, Kate?  Have you got it?” she asked, when the moment came to pay a hundred dollars for two or three snuff-boxes, picked up in a place she had not visited until that day.

“No, ma’am, you had it on yer arm when I noticed last,” said Kate, looking startled.  “Fur all the saints, I hope ye haven’t lost it!”

Angela, too, began to look anxious.  Not only was her bag valuable—­worth seven or eight hundred dollars—­but all her money was in it, and a check-book she had brought out that morning, to pay Monsieur Bienvenu the rather large sum she owed him.  Still, she was not greatly distressed.  She had lost that gold bag so many times, had dropped it from her lap when she got up, left it in motor-cars, or lying on the floor in friends’ houses, and always it had come back to her!  She cheered herself, therefore by saying that to-day would be no exception.

“Let me think, where were we last, Kate?” she wondered.  “The shop where I bought the lilac and silver stole, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am it was.  And indade, if ye’ll not mind my sayin’ so, I begged ye not to go in there, the place looked so disrespectable, as if there might be measles or ‘most anything, and the man himself come poppin’ out to entice ye in, like the spider with the fly.”

“We must go back at once and see if I left the bag after paying for the stole,” said Angela.  And, explaining to the late owner of the snuff-boxes, she hurried out with Kate, leaving her parcel to be called for.

Little Mr. Isaac Cohensohn, of the brocade shop, made a search, but could not find the missing trinket.  Unfortunately, a number of people had been in since the lady left, strangers to him.  If madam was sure she had gone out of the shop without the bag, why, somebody must have taken it since then.  The question was, who?  But she must apply to the police.

“If only I hadn’t stuffed in that check-book!” Angela said to Kate.  “Perhaps they would have cashed a check in the hotel.  Anyhow, Monsieur Bienvenu would have taken one for what I owe him.  Now I’m in the most horrid scrape!  I don’t know how I’m going to get out of it.”

They walked back toward the shop of the snuff-boxes gloomily discussing the situation, which was complicated by the fact that, grown cautious since the attempted burglary at the Valmont, Angela had left her most valuable jewellery in a bank at New York.  It was to be sent on, insured, only when she finished her travelling, and settled down.