She blanched at the thought of his suspecting something, and explained as best she could.
She had gone to see her washerwoman. She was slow about her marketing.
She didn't dream he was there.
She was sorry, too, that her absence had lost her an opportunity to serve him.
It showed her what a mess she was likely to make of it all.
It happened that about three weeks after the above occurrence Lester had occasion to return to Cincinnati for a week, and during this time Jennie again brought Vesta to the flat; for four days there was the happiest goings on between the mother and child.
Nothing would have come of this little reunion had it not been for an oversight on Jennie's part, the far-reaching effects of which she could only afterward regret.
This was the leaving of a little toy lamb under the large leather divan in the front room, where Lester was wont to lie and smoke.
A little bell held by a thread of blue ribbon was fastened about its neck, and this tinkled feebly whenever it was shaken.
Vesta, with the unaccountable freakishness of children had deliberately dropped it behind the divan, an action which Jennie did not notice at the time.
When she gathered up the various playthings after Vesta's departure she overlooked it entirely, and there it rested, its innocent eyes still staring upon the sunlit regions of toyland, when Lester returned.
That same evening, when he was lying on the divan, quietly enjoying his cigar and his newspaper, he chanced to drop the former, fully lighted.
Wishing to recover it before it should do any damage, he leaned over and looked under the divan.
The cigar was not in sight, so he rose and pulled the lounge out, a move which revealed to him the little lamb still standing where Vesta had dropped it.
He picked it up, turning it over and over, and wondering how it had come there. A lamb!
It must belong to some neighbor's child in whom Jennie had taken an interest, he thought.
He would have to go and tease her about this.
Accordingly he held the toy jovially before him, and, coming out into the dining-room, where Jennie was working at the sideboard, he exclaimed in a mock solemn voice,
"Where did this come from?"
Jennie, who was totally unconscious of the existence of this evidence of her duplicity, turned, and was instantly possessed with the idea that he had suspected all and was about to visit his just wrath upon her.
Instantly the blood flamed in her cheeks and as quickly left them.
"Why, why!" she stuttered, "it's a little toy I bought."
"I see it is," he returned genially, her guilty tremor not escaping his observation, but having at the same time no explicable significance to him.
"It's frisking around a mighty lone sheepfold."
He touched the little bell at its throat, while Jennie stood there, unable to speak. It tinkled feebly, and then he looked at her again.
His manner was so humorous that she could tell he suspected nothing. However, it was almost impossible for her to recover her self-possession.
"What's ailing you?" he asked.
"Nothing," she replied.
"You look as though a lamb was a terrible shock to you."
"I forgot to take it out from there, that was all," she went on blindly.
"It looks as though it has been played with enough," he added more seriously, and then seeing that the discussion was evidently painful to her, he dropped it.
The lamb had not furnished him the amusement that he had expected.
Lester went back into the front room, stretched himself out and thought it over.
Why was she nervous?
What was there about a toy to make her grow pale?
Surely there was no harm in her harboring some youngster of the neighborhood when she was alone—having it come in and play.
Why should she be so nervous?
He thought it over, but could come to no conclusion.
Nothing more was said about the incident of the toy lamb.
Time might have wholly effaced the impression from Lester's memory had nothing else intervened to arouse his suspicions; but a mishap of any kind seems invariably to be linked with others which follow close upon its heels.
One evening when Lester happened to be lingering about the flat later than usual the door bell rang, and, Jennie being busy in the kitchen, Lester went himself to open the door.
He was greeted by a middle-aged lady, who frowned very nervously upon him, and inquired in broken Swedish accents for Jennie.
"Wait a moment," said Lester; and stepping to the rear door he called her.
Jennie came, and seeing who the visitor was, she stepped nervously out in the hall and closed the door after her.
The action instantly struck Lester as suspicious.
He frowned and determined to inquire thoroughly into the matter.
A moment later Jennie reappeared.
Her face was white and her fingers seemed to be nervously seeking something to seize upon.
"What's the trouble?" he inquired, the irritation he had felt the moment before giving his voice a touch of gruffness.
"I've got to go out for a little while," she at last managed to reply.