he looked into it, and touched her hat straight
again, but the action was subconscious. Clara wasn't thinking of it.

Flora stood as if she were afraid to move, while Clara crossed her
bedroom, stopped, went on and closed the outer door behind her. And even
after that soft little concussion she stood still, burning, choking,
struggling with the overwhelming force of an affront whose import she
did not yet realize. Out in her sunny dressing-room all the outraged
furniture stood meek and in order, frauding the eye to believe that
nothing had happened! She felt she couldn't look things in the face a
moment longer. She hid her face in the folds of her dressing-gown.

Why, she had thought that such things couldn't happen! She had thought
that people's private belongings, like their persons, were inviolable.
They all always talked, she had talked, about such things as if they
were mere nothings. They had talked about the very taking of the Crew
Idol as if it were a splendid joke! But she had not dreamed what such
things were like when they were near. When they were held up to you
naked they were like this! In the shame of it she could no more have
faced Clara than if she had surprised Clara naked.

She snatched the ring out of the pocket of her gown and clutched it in
her hand. Was there no place in the world where she could be sure of
safety for this?

With trembling fingers she fastened it again to the chain about her
neck. She thought of Kerr down-stairs waiting for her. Well, she would
rather keep it with her. Then, at least, she would know when it was
taken from her. Still in the fury of her outraged faith, she passed
through her violated rooms, and slowly along the hall and down the
stairs.

XI

THE MYSTERY TAKES HUMAN FORM

He turned from the window where he had presented a long, drooping,
patient back, and his warm, ironic mirth--the same that had played with
her the first night--flashed out at sight of her. But after a moment
another expression mixed with it, sharpened it, and fastened upon her
with an incredulous intentness.

She stood on the threshold, pale, and brilliant still in her blaze of
anger, equal, at last, to anything. Kerr, as he signaled to her with
every lineament of his enlivened face, his interest, his defiance, his
uncontrollability, was not the man of her imaginary conversations. He
was not here to be used and disposed of; but, as he came toward her,
the new admiration in his face