Part 14 (1/2)

For the life of her she couldn't help her wave of color, but through it all she clung to her festal smile. Sheer nervousness made it easy.

”Well, suppose it was begged, borrowed, or--given to me? Suppose it came from here or far away yonder? What's that to do with its beauty?” She gave him question for question. ”Did you ever see it before?”

He never left off looking at her, looking at her with a hard inquiry, as if she were some simple puzzle that he unaccountably failed to solve.

”That's rather neat, the way you dodge me,” he said, dodging in his turn. ”But I don't see it _now_. You're not wearing it?”

She played indifference with what a beating heart! ”Oh, I only wear it off and on.”

”Off and on!” His voice suddenly rang at her. ”Off and on! Why, my good woman, it's just two days you could have worn it at all!”

She stood up--stood facing him. For a moment she knew nothing except that her horrible idea was a fact. She had the eye of the Crew Idol, and this man knew it! Yet the fact declared gave her courage. She could face his accusal if only he could give the reason for it. But after a moment, while they looked silently at each other, she saw he was not accusing her. He was threatening her and beseeching her indulgence in the same look. He opened his lips, hesitated, turned sharp about and walked away from her.

She watched him with increasing doubt. After saying so much, was he going to say nothing more? She had a feeling that she had not heard the worst yet, and when he turned back to her from the other end of the room there was something so haggard, so hara.s.sed, so fairly guilty about him that if she had ever thought of telling him the truth of how she came by the ring she put it away from her now.

But beneath his distress she recognized a desperate earnestness. There was something he wanted at any cost, but he was going to be gentle with her. She had felt before the potentiality of his gentleness, and she doubted her power to resist it. She fanned up all the flame of anger that had swept her into the room. She reminded herself that the greatest gentleness might only be a blind; that there was nothing stronger than wanting something very much, and that the protection of the jewel was very thin. But when he stood beside her she realized he held a stronger weapon against her than his gentleness, something apart from his intention. She felt that in whatever circ.u.mstance, at whatever time she should meet him he would make her feel thus--hot and cold, and happy for the mere presence of his body beside her. In a confusion she heard what he was saying.

He was speaking, almost coaxingly, as if to a child. ”I understand,” he was saying. ”I know all about it. It's a mistake. But surely you don't expect to keep it now. It will only be an annoyance to you.”

She turned on him. ”What could it be to you?”

Kerr, planted before her, with his head dropped, looked, looked, looked, as if he gave silence leave to answer for him what it would. It answered with a hundred echoes ringing up to her from long corridors of conjecture, half-articulated words breathing of how extraordinary the answer must be that he did not dare to make. He looked her up and down carefully, impersonally, with that air he had of regarding a rare specimen, thoughtfully; as if he weighed such ephemeral substance as chance.

”What will you take for it?” he said at last.

She was silent. With a sick distrust it came to her that it was the very worst thing he could have said after that speaking silence.

She stepped away from him. ”This thing is not for sale.”

He stared at her with amazement; then threw back his head and laughed as if something had amused him above all tragedy.

”You are an extraordinary creature,” he said, ”but really I must have it. I can't explain the why of it; only give the sapphire to me, and you'll never be sorry for having done that for me. Whatever happens, you may be sure I won't talk. Even if the thing comes out, you shan't be mixed up in it.” He had come near her again, and the point of his long forefinger rested on her arm. She was motionless, overwhelmed with pure terror, with despair. He was smiling, but there was a desperate something about him, stronger than the common desire of possession, terrifying in its intensity. She looked behind her. The thick gla.s.s of the window was there, a glimpse of the empty street and the figure of a woman in a blowing green veil turning the corner.

”Why not give it to me now,” he urged, ”since, of course, you can't keep it? I could have it now in spite of you.”

Everything in her sprang up in antagonism to meet him. ”I know what you are,” she cried, ”but you shan't have it. You have no more right to it than I. You can't get it away from me, and I shan't give it to you.”

He had grown suddenly paler; his eyes were dancing, fastened upon her breast. His long hands closed and opened. She looked down, arrested at the sight of her hand clenched just where her breath was shortest, over the sapphire's hiding-place.

He smiled. How easily she had betrayed herself! But she abated not a jot of her defiance, challenging him, now he knew its hiding-place, to take the sapphire if he could. But he did not move. And it came to her then that she had been ridiculous to think for an instant that this man would take anything from her by force. What she had to fear was his will at work upon hers, his persuasion, his ingenuity. She thought of the purple irises, and how he had drawn them toward him in the crook of his cane--and her dread was lest he meant to overcome her with some subtlety she could not combat. For that he was secret, that he was daring, that he was fearless beyond belief, he showed her all too plainly, since here he stood, condemned by his own evidence, alone, in the midst of her household, within call of her servants, and had the sublime effrontery to look at her with admiration, and, it occurred to her, even with a little pity.

The click of a moving latch brought his eyes from hers to the door.

”Some one is coming in,” he said in a guarded voice. It warned her that her face showed too much, but she could not hope to recover her composure. She hardly wanted to. She was in a state to fancy that a secret could be kept by main force; and she turned without abatement of her reckless mood and took her hand from where she had held it clenched upon her breast and stretched it out to Mrs. Herrick.

The lady had stood in the doorway a moment--a long-featured, whitish, modeled face, draped in a dull green veil, a tall figure whose flowing skirts of black melted away into the background of the hall--before she came forward and met her hostess' hand with a clasp firm and ready.

”I'm so glad to find you here,” she said. She looked directly into Flora's eyes, into the very center of her agitation. She held her tremulous hand as if neither of these manifestations surprised her; as if a young woman and a young man in colloquy might often be found in such a state of mind.