Her hand was in his for the fraction of a minute. Then the car was widening the distance between them, and she was no longer looking into his face, which had seemed at their last moment both merry and wistful, but back at his diminishing figure, showing black against the pale Presidio hills.
V
ON GUARD
He had so disturbed her, his presence had so obliterated other presences and annihilated time, that it took an encounter with Clara to remind her of her arrangement for the evening. The dance? No, she had given that up. She had promised Harry to be at home. Clara wanted to know rather austerely what she intended to do about the dinner. This was dreadful!
Flora had forgotten it completely. Nothing to be done but go, and leave a message for Harry--apology, and a.s.surance that she would be home early. She wondered if she were losing her memory.
She appeared to be changing altogether, for the dinner--a merry one--bored her. What she wanted was to get away from it as soon as possible for that interesting evening. When she had made the appointment with Harry she had been excited by the thought that he might tell her whether he had learned anything from the major that morning in the matter of the ring. But now she was more engrossed with the idea of asking about Kerr--whether Harry had really met him--if so, where; and, finally, why did not Harry want her to mention that Emba.s.sy ball?
Primed with these questions, she left immediately after coffee, arriving at her own red stone portal at ten. But coming in, all a-flutter with the idea of having kept him waiting when she had so much to ask, she found her note as she had left it. She questioned Shima. There had been no message from Mr. Cressy. Her first annoyance was lost in wonder. What could be the matter? If this was neglect on Harry"s part--well, it would be the first time. But she did not believe it was neglect. He had been too eager that morning.
She went into the drawing-room--a dull-pink, stupendous chamber--knelt a moment before the flashing wood fire, then rose, and crossing to the window, looked anxiously out. She had a flight of fancy toward accidents, but in that case she would certainly have heard. The French clock on the mantel rang half-past ten. The sound had hardly died in the great s.p.a.ces before she heard the fine snarl of the electric bell.
She restrained an impulse to dash into the hall, and stood impatient in the middle of the room.
He came in hastily, his lips all ready with words which hesitated at sight of her.
"Why, you"re going out!" he said.
She had forgotten the cloak that still hung from her shoulders.
"No, I"ve just come in, and all my fine apologies for being out are wasted. How long do you think Clara"ll let you stop at this hour?"
"Clara isn"t here," he said.
"Well, then your time is all the shorter." She was nettled that he should be oblivious of his lapse. Their relation had never been sentimental, but he had always been punctilious.
"I"m sorry," he said, arriving at last at his apology. "I couldn"t help being late. I"ve had a day of it." He drew his hands across his forehead, and she noticed that he was in his morning clothes and looked as rumpled and flurried as a man just from the office.
She relented. "Poor dear! You do look tired! Don"t take that chair. It"s more Louis Quinze than comfortable. Come into the library. And remember," she added, when Shima had set the decanter and gla.s.ses beside him, "you are to stay just twenty minutes."
He took a sip of his drink and looked at her over the top of his gla.s.s.
"I may have to stay longer if you want to hear about it."
"Oh, Harry, you really know something? All the evening I"ve heard nothing but the wildest rumors. Some say Major Purdie couldn"t speak because some one "way up knows more than she should about it. And somebody else said it wasn"t the real ring at all that was taken, only a paste copy, and that is why they"re not doing more about getting it back."
"Not doing more about getting it back?" Harry laughed. "Is that the idea that generally prevails? Why, Flora--" He stopped, waited a moment while she leaned forward expectant. "Flora," he began again, "are you mum?"
She nodded, breathless.
"Not a word to Clara?"
"Oh, of course not."
"Well--" He twisted around in his chair the better to face her.
"To-morrow there will be published a reward of twenty thousand dollars for the return of the Crew Idol, and no questions asked."
"Oh!" she said. And again, "Oh, is that all!" She was disappointed. "I don"t see why you and the major should have been so mysterious about that."
"You don"t, eh? Suppose you had taken the ring--wouldn"t it make a difference to you if you knew twenty-four hours ahead that a reward of twenty thousand dollars would be published? Wouldn"t you expect every man"s hand to be against you at that price? If you had a pal, wouldn"t you be afraid he"d sell you up? Wouldn"t you be glad of twenty-four hours" start to keep him from turning state"s evidence? Well--it"s just so that he shan"t have the start that the authorities are keeping so almighty dark about the reward. They want to spring it on him."
Flora leaned forward with knitted brows. "Yes, I can see that, but still, just among ourselves, this morning--"
Harry smiled. "You"ve lost sight of the fact that it is just among ourselves the thing has happened."
"Oh, oh! Now you"re ridiculous!"
"I might be, if the thing had happened anywhere but in this town; but think a moment. How much do we know of the people we meet, where they were, and who they were, before they came here? There"s a case in point.
It was not quite "among ourselves" this morning."
"Harry, how horrid of you!" She was on the point of declaring that she knew Kerr very well indeed; but she remembered this might not be the thing to say to Harry.
"My dear girl, I"m not saying anything against him. I only remarked that we did not know him."
"Don"t _you_, Harry?"
He gave her a quick look. "Why, what put that into your head?"
"I--I don"t know. I thought you looked at him very hard last night in the picture gallery. And afterward, at supper, don"t you remember, you did not want me to mention your connection with something or other he was talking about?"
"Something or other he was talking about?" Harry inquired with a frowning smile.
"I think it was about that Emba.s.sy ball--"
"_I_ didn"t want you to mention the Emba.s.sy ball?" he repeated, and now he was only smiling. "My dear child, surely you are dreaming."
She looked at him with the bewildered feeling that he was flatly contradicting himself. And yet she could remember he had not shaken his head at her. He had only nodded. Could it be that her cherished imagination had played her a trick at last? But the next moment it occurred to her that somehow she had been led away from her first question.
"Then _have_ you seen him, Harry?" she insisted.
"No!" He jerked it out so sharply that it startled her, but she stuck to her subject.
"And you wouldn"t have minded my telling him you had been at that ball?"
There was a pause while Harry looked at the fire. Then--"Look here," he burst out, "did he ask you about it?"
"Oh, no," she protested. "I only just happened to wonder."
He stared at her as if he would have liked to shake her. But then he rose from his frowning att.i.tude before the fire, came over to her, sat on the arm of her chair, and, with the tip of one finger under her chin, lifted her face; but she did not lift her eyes. She heard only his voice, very low, with a caressing note that she hardly knew as Harry"s.
"It isn"t that I care _what_ you say to him. The fact is, Flora, I suppose I was a little jealous, but I naturally don"t like the suggestion that you would discuss me with a stranger."
She knew herself properly reproved, and she reproached herself, not for what she had actually said to Kerr of Harry--that had been trivial enough--but for that wayward impulse she had to confide in this clear-eyed, whimsical stranger, as it had never occurred to her to confide in Harry.