quizzed.
"She probably had something to say to Mrs. Purdie that--"
"My dear child," he caught her up earnestly, "don't think I'm
criticizing your friend's motive. I am only saying I saw something done
that was not pretty, though really, if you will forgive me--it was very
funny."
Flora smiled ruefully. "It must have been--absurd. I am afraid I often
am. But what else could I have done?"
He seemed to ponder a moment. "I fancy _you_ couldn't have done anything
different. That's why I came back for you," he volunteered gaily.
The casual words seemed in her ears fraught with deeper meaning. Her
cheeks were hot behind her thin veil. They were strolling slowly up the
board walk, and for a moment she could not look at him. She could only
listen to the flutter of the fringes of the parasol carried above her
head. She felt herself small and stupid. She could not understand what
he could see in her to come back to. Then she gave a side glance at him.
She saw an unsmiling profile. The lines in his face were indeed
extraordinary, but none was hard. She liked that wonderful mobility that
had survived the batterings of experience.
As if he were conscious of her eyes, he looked down and smiled; but
vaguely. He did not speak; and she was aware that it was at her
appearance he had smiled, as if that only reached him through his
preoccupation and pleased him. And since he seemed content with this
vague looking, she was content to move beside him silent, a mere image
of youth and--since he liked it--of prettiness, with a fleeting color
and a gust of little curls blowing out under a fluttering veil.
But what was he thinking about so seriously between those smiling
glances? Not her problem, she was sure.
Yet he had stayed for her when he had not meant to stay. He had been
anxious to get away since he had first sighted them. Surely he must like
her more than he disliked some other member of her party. Or had he
simply reached forth out of his kindness to rescue her, as he might have
rescued a blind kitten that he pitied? "No," he had said, "_you_ could
not have done anything different."
They had almost reached the major's gate, and it was now or never to
find out what he thought of her. She looked up at him suddenly, with
inquiring eyes.
"Do you think I am weak?" she demanded.
The lines of his face broke up into laughter. "No," he said, "I think
you are misplaced."
She knitted her brows in perplexity, but his hand was on the white
picket gate, and she had to walk through it ahead of him as he set it
open for her.
Of their party only the two women were in sight waiting on the
diminutive veranda. Clara had a mild domestic appearance, rocking there
behind the potted geraniums. All the windows were open into the little
shell of a house. Trunks still stood in the hall, though the Purdies had
been quartered at the Presidio for nine months. From the rear of the
house came the sound of bowl and chopper, where the Chinese cook was
preparing luncheon, and the major's man appeared, walking around the
garden to the veranda, with a cluster of mint juleps on a copper tray.
In this easy atmosphere, how was it that the thread of restraint ran so
sharply defined? Clara and Mrs. Purdie were matching crewels; and,
sitting on the top step Flora instructed Kerr as to the composition of
the tropical glacier they were drinking. Ten girls had probably so
instructed him before, but it would do to fill up the gap. It was so,
Flora thought, they were all feeling. Even the carriage, driving slowly
round and round the rectangle of officers' row, added its note of
restlessness.
Like a stone plumped into a pool the major and Harry reëntered this
stagnation. They were brisk and buoyant. Harry, especially, had the air
of a man who sees stimulating business before him. Immediately all
talked at once.
"Now that we've got you here, you must all stay to luncheon," Mrs.
Purdie determined.
It looked as if they were about to accept her invitation unanimously,
but Harry demurred. He had to be at Montgomery Street and Jackson by one
o'clock. "I hoped," he added, glancing at Flora, "that some one was to
drive me--part of the way, at least."
Flora, with an unruly sense of disappointment, yet opened her lips for
the courteous answer. But Clara was quicker. She rose.
"Yes," she said, "I'll drive you back with pleasure."
Harry's glimmer of annoyance was comic.
"I have to be at the house for luncheon," Clara explained to her hostess
as she buttoned her glove, "but there is no reason why Flora shouldn't
stay."
"Oh, I should love to," Flora murmured, not knowing whether she was more
embarrassed or pleased at this high-handed dispensation which placed her
where she wanted to be.
But the way Clara had leaped at her opportunity! Flora looked curiously
at Harry.
He seemed uneasy at being pounced upon, but that might be merely because
he was balked of a tête-à-tête with herself. For while Clara went on to
the gate with their hostess he lingered a moment with Flora.
"May I see you to-night?"
"All you have to do is to come."
She gave him an oblique, upward glance, and had a pleasant sense of
power in seeing his face relax and smile. She had a dance for that
evening; but she thrust it aside without regret. For suppose Harry
should have something to tell her about the Chatworth ring? She wondered
if Clara would get it out of him first on the way home.
The four left on the veranda watched the two driving away with a sudden
clearing of the social atmosphere. In vain Flora told herself it was
only the relief she always felt in getting free of Clara. For in the
return of the major's elderly blandishments, in Kerr's kindlier mood, as
well as in her own lightened spirits, she had the proofs that, with them
all, some tension had relaxed. It seemed to her as if those two,
departing, were bearing away between them the very mystery of the Crew
Idol.
IV
FLOWERS BY THE WAY
Flora liked this funny little dining-room with walls as frail as
box-boards, low-ceiled and flooded with sun. It recalled surroundings
she had known later than the mining camp, but long before the great red
house. It seemed to her that she fitted here better than the Purdies.
She looked across at Kerr, sitting opposite, to see if perhaps he fitted
too. But he was foreign, decidedly. He kept about him still the hint of
delicate masquerade that she had noticed the night before. Out of doors,
alone with her, he had lost it. For a moment he had been absolutely off
his guard. And even now he was more off his guard than he had been last
night. She was surprised to see him so unstudied, so uncritical, so
humorously anecdotal. If she and the major, between them, had dragged
him into this against his will he did not show it. She rose from the
table with the feeling that in an hour all three of them had become
quite old friends of his, though without knowing anything further about
him.
"We must do this again," Mrs. Purdie said, as they parted from her in
the garden.
"Surely we will," Kerr answered her.
But Flora had the feeling that they never, never would. For him it had
been a chance touching on a strange shore.
But at least they were going away together. They would walk together as
far as the little car, whose terminal was the edge of the parade-ground.
But just outside of the gate he stopped.
"Do you especially like board walks?" he asked.
It was an instant before she took his meaning. Then she laughed. "No. I
like green paths."
He waved with his cane. "There is a path yonder, that goes over a
bridge, and beyond that a hill."
"And at the top of that another car," Flora reminded him.
"Ah well," he said, "there are flowers on the way, at least." He looked
at her whimsically. "There are three purple irises under the bridge. I
noticed them as I came down."
She was pleased that he had noticed that for himself--pleased, too, that
he had suggested the longer way.
The narrow path that they had chosen branched out upon the main path,
broad and yellow, which dipped downward into the hollow. From there came
the murmur of water. Green showed through the white grass of last
summer. The odor of wet evergreens was pungent in their nostrils. They
looked at the delicate fringed acacias, at the circle of hills showing
above the low tree-tops, at the cloudless sky; but always their eyes
returned to each other's faces, as if they found these the pleasantest
points of the landscape. Sauntering between plantations of young
eucalyptus, they came to the arched stone bridge. They leaned on the
parapet, looking down at the marshy stream beneath and at the three
irises Kerr had remarked, knee-deep in swamp ground.
"Now that I see them I suppose I want them," Flora remarked.
"Of course," he assented. "Then hold all these."
He put into her hands the loose bunch of syringa and rose plucked for
her in the Purdies' garden, laid his hat and gloves on the parapet;
then, with an eye for the better bank, walked to the end of the bridge.
She watched him descending the steep bank and issuing into the broad
shallow basin of the stream's way. The sun was still high enough to fill
the hollows with warm light and mellow the doubles of trees and grass in
the stream. In this landscape of green and pale gold he looked black and
tall and angular. The wind blew longish locks of hair across his
forehead, and she had a moment's pleased and timorous reflection that
he looked like Satan coming into the Garden.
He advanced from tussock to tussock. He came to the brink of the marsh.
The lilies wavered what seemed but a hand's-breadth from him. But he
stooped, he reached--Oh, could anything so foolish happen as that he
could not get them! Or, more foolish still, plunge in to the knees! He
straightened from his fruitless effort, drew back, but before she could
think what he was about he had leaned forward again, flashed out his
cane, and with three quick, cutting slashes the lilies were mown. It was
deftly, delicately, astonishingly done, but it gave her a singular
shock, as if she had seen a hawk strike its prey. He drew them cleverly
toward him in the crook of his cane, took them up daintily in his
fingers, and returned to her across the shallow valley. She waited him
with mixed emotions.
[Illustration: HE TOOK THE LILIES UP DAINTILY, AND RETURNED TO HER.]
"Oh, how could you!" she murmured, as he put them into her hand.
He looked at her in amused astonishment. "Why, aren't they right?"
They were as clean clipped off and as perfect as if the daintiest hand
had plucked them.
"Oh, yes," she admitted, "they're lovely, but I don't like the way you
got them."
"I took the means I had," he objected.
"I don't think I like it."
His whole face was sparkling with interest and amusement. "Is that so?
Why not?"
"You're too--too"--she cast about for the word--"too terribly
resourceful!"
"I see," he said. If she had feared he would laugh, it showed how little
she had gauged the limits of his laughter. He only looked at her rather
more intently than he had before.
"But, my good child, resourcefulness is a very natural instinct. I am
afraid you read more into it than is there. You wanted the flowers, I
had a stick, and in my youth I was taught to strike clean and straight.
I am really a very simple fellow."
Looking him in the eyes, which were of a clear, candid gray, she was
ready to believe it. It seemed as if he had let her look for a moment
through his manner, his ironies, his armor of indifference, to the frank
foundations of his nature.
"But, you see, the trouble is you don't in the least look it," she
argued.
"So you think because I have a long face and wild hair that I am a
sinister person? My dear Miss Gilsey, the most desperate character I
ever knew was five feet high and wore mutton-chop whiskers. It is an
uncertain business judging men by their appearance."
She could not help smiling. "But most people do."
"I don't class you with most people."
She gave him a quick look. "You _did_ the first night."
"Possibly--but less and less ever since. You have me now in the state of
mind where I don't know what you'll be at next."
This was fortunate, she thought, since she had not the least idea
herself, beyond a teasing desire to find out more about him. He had
shown her many fleeting phases which, put together, seemed
contradictory. She could not connect this man, so mild and amusing,
strolling beside her, with the alert, whetted, combative person of the
night before, or even with the aloof and reticent figure on the
parade-ground. His very attitude toward herself had changed from the
amused scrutiny of the first night into something more indulgent, more
sympathetic. There was only one attitude on his part that had remained
the same--one attitude toward one person--and her mind hovered over
this. On each occasion it had stirred her curiosity and, though she had
not admitted it, made her uneasy. Why not probe him on the subject, now
that she had him completely to herself? But as soon as silence fell
between them she saw that wave of preoccupation which had submerged him
during their walk from the parade-ground to the Purdies' rising over him
again and floating him away from her. He no longer even looked at her.
His eyes were on the ground, and it was not until they had crossed the
open expanse of the shallow valley and were climbing toward the avenue
of cypress that she found courage to put her question.
"Have you and Mr. Cressy met before?"
He raised his head with a jerk and looked at her a moment in
astonishment.
"Do you mind if I answer your question American fashion by asking
another?" he said presently. "What put it into your head that we may
have met before?"
"The way you looked at each other at the club, and again this morning."
Kerr shook his head. "You are an observant young person! The fact is,
I've never met him--of that I'm certain, but I believe I've seen him
before, and for the life of me, I can't think where. At the moment you
spoke I was trying to remember."
"Was it in this country?" Flora prompted, hopeful of fishing something
definite out of this vagueness.
"No, it was years ago. It must have been in England." He looked at her
inquiringly, as if he expected her to help him.
"Oh, Harry's been in England," she said quickly; and then, with a
flashing thought, came to her the one scene Harry had mentioned in his
English experience. Was it at a ball? The question came to her lips, but
she checked it there. She remembered how Harry had stopped her the night
before with a nod, with a look, from mentioning that very thing. Still
she hesitated--for the temptation was strong. But no; it was only loyal
to Harry to speak to him first.
"So you're not going to tell me?" Kerr remarked, and she came back to a
sudden consciousness of how her face must have reflected her thought.
"No--not this time!" she said, smiling, though somewhat flushed.
He knitted his brows at her. They had reached the arched gate, and the
car that would carry her home was approaching.
"Ah, then, I am afraid it will be never," he said.
Was it possible this was their last meeting? Did he mean he was going
away? The questions formed in her mind, but there was no time for words.
He had stopped the car with a flick of his agile cane, and handed her in
as if he had handed her into a carriage; and not a word as to whether
they would see each other again, though she hoped and hesitated to the
last moment.
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 assurance 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 Embassy 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 spaces 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 glasses 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 glass.
"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 Embassy ball--"
"_I_ didn't want you to mention the Embassy 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 attitude 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.
She raised her eyes. "Certainly I shall not discuss you with him."
"Is that a promise?"
"Harry, how you do dislike him!"
"Well, suppose I do?" he shrugged.
"You've used up twice your twenty minutes," she said, "and Clara will be
scandalized."
He stopped the caressing movement of his hand on her hair. "Are you
afraid of Clara?" he asked.
"Mercy, yes!" She was half in earnest and half laughing. "But then I'm
afraid of every one."
He put his arm affectionately around her. "But not of me?"
"Oh," she told him, "you're a great big purring pussy-cat, and I am your
poor little mouse."
He thought this reply immensely witty, and Flora thought what a great
boy he was, after all.
"Now, really, you must go home," she urged, trying to rise.
"But look here," he protested, still on the arm of her chair, "there's
another thing I want to ask you about." And by the tip of one finger he
lifted her left hand shining with rings. "You will have to have another
one of these, you know. It's been on my mind for a week. Is there any
sort you haven't already?"