“Very well,” I said, much offended.  “After this I shall sit with Flannigan in the kitchen.  He is the only gentleman in the house.”

I left him babbling apologies and went to bed, but I had an uncomfortable feeling that Bella had been a witness to our conversation, for the door into Aunt Selina’s room closed softly as I passed.

I knew beforehand that I was not going to sleep.  The instant I turned out the light the nightmare events of the evening ranged themselves in a procession, or a series of tableaus, one after the other; Flannigan on the roof, with the bracelet on his palm, looking accusingly at me; Mr. Harbison and the scene on the roof, with my flippancy; and the result of that flippancy—­the man on the stairs, the arms that held me, the terrible kisses that had scorched my lips—­it was awful!  And then the absurd situation across Aunt Selina’s bed, and Bella’s face!  Oh, it was all so ridiculous—­my having thought that the Harbison man was a gentleman, and finding him a cad, and worse.  It was excruciatingly funny.  I quite got a headache from laughing; indeed I laughed until I found I was crying, and then I knew I was going to have an attack of strangulated emotion, called hysteria.  So I got up and turned on all the lights, and bathed my face with cologne, and felt better.

But I did not go to sleep.  When the hall clock chimed two, I discovered I was hungry.  I had had nothing since luncheon, and even the thirst following the South American goulash was gone.  There was probably something to eat in the pantry, and if there was not, I was quite equal to going to the basement.

As it happened, however, I found a very orderly assortment of left-overs and a pitcher of milk, which had no business there in the pantry, and with plenty of light I was not at all frightened.

I ate bread and butter and drank milk, and was fast becoming a rational person again; I had pulled out one of the drawers part way, and with a tray across the corner I had improvised a comfortable seat.  And then I noticed that the drawer was full of soiled napkins, and I remembered the bracelet.  I hardly know why I decided to go through the drawer again, after Flannigan had already done it, but I did.  I finished my milk and then, getting down on my knees, I proceeded systematically to empty the drawer.  I took out perhaps a dozen napkins and as many doilies without finding anything.  Then I took out a large tray cloth, and there was something on it that made me look farther.  One corner of it had been scorched, the clear and well defined imprint of a lighted cigarette or cigar, a blackened streak that trailed off into a brown and yellow.  I had a queer, trembly feeling, as if I were on the brink of a discovery—­perhaps Anne’s pearls, or the cuff buttons with storks painted on china in the center.  But the only thing I found, down in the corner of the drawer, was a half-burned cigarette.

To me, it seemed quite enough.  It was one of the South American cigarettes, with a tobacco wrapper instead of paper, that Mr. Harbison smoked.