Quard made no answer.
With a troubled sigh she moved to his chair and bent over him. His eyes,
wide and blazing, met hers with a look of inflexible hostility and rage;
his mouth was set like a trap, his lips, like his face, were almost
colourless. The air was pungent with his breath, but intuitively she
divined that it was not drunkenness alone which had aroused this temper,
the more dismaying since it was for the time being under control.
From the look in his eyes she started back as from a blow.
"Charlie! What's the matter?"
Quard opened his lips, gulped spasmodically, closed them without
speaking. The muscles on the left side of his face twitched nervously.
Abruptly he shot up out of his chair, strode to the door, locked it and
pocketed the key. His face as he turned was terrible to see.
She shrank away, but his eyes held hers in the fascination of fright.
"Why--Charlie!--what--"
He interrupted with an imperative gesture, took a step toward her, and
shook his hand in her face. Between his thumb and forefinger glittered
something exquisitely coruscant in the sunlight.
"What's that?" he demanded in a quivering voice.
She moved her head in assumed bewilderment, staggered to recognize the
symbol of her broken troth with Matthias.
"I don't know. What is it? You keep moving it around so, I can't
see...."
"There, then!" he cried, steadying the hand under her nose.
Instinctively her gaze veered to her trunk. Its lid was up. On the floor
lay her work-basket in the litter of its former contents. Her
indignation mounted.
"What were you doing in my trunk?" she demanded hotly.
Quard's eyes clouded under the impact of this counter attack.
Momentarily his dazed expression made it very plain that he had taken
advantage of her absence to drink heavily. And this was even more plain
in the blurred accents, robbed of the sharpness rage had lent them, in
which he endeavoured to justify himself.
"I wanted--shew on s'pender button--wanted work-basket...."