"I don't know why you did it, you quixotic child, but you must not expose yourself in this way, for any reason whatsoever."
The light of the crowded rooms burst upon them again.
"Oh," she turned to him beseechingly, "can't you get me away?"
"Surely." His manner was as if nothing had happened. His smile was reassuring. "I'll call your carriage, and find Mrs. Britton."
When Flora came down from the dressing-room she found Clara already in the carriage, and Kerr mounting guard in the hall. As he handed her in, Clara leaned forward.
"He sent his apologies," Kerr explained. "He is not able to get away just now."
Clara could not control a look of astonishment. As the carriage began to move and Kerr's face disappeared from the square of the window, she turned to Flora.
"Have you and Harry quarreled over that man?"
Flora's voice was low. "No. But Harry--Harry--" she stammered, hardly knowing how to put it, then put it most truly: "Harry is not quite himself to-night."
Flora lay back in the carriage. She was dimly aware of Clara's presence beside her, but for the moment Clara had ceased to be a factor. The shape that filled all the foreground of her thought was Harry. He loomed alarming to her imagination--all the more so since, for the moment, he had seemed to lose his grip. That was another thing she could not quite understand. That burst of violent irritation following, as it had, Judge Buller's words! If Kerr had been the speaker it would have been natural enough, since all through this interview Harry's evident antagonism had seemed strained to the snapping point.
But poor Judge Buller had been harmless enough. He had been merely theorizing. But--wait! She made so sharp a movement that Clara looked at her. The judge's theory might be close to facts that Harry was cognizant of.
For herself she had had no way of finding out how the sapphire had got adrift. But hadn't Harry? Hadn't he followed up that singular scene with the blue-eyed Chinaman by other visits to the goldsmith's shop? Why, yesterday, when he was supposed to be in Burlingame, Clara had seen him in Chinatown. The idea burst upon her then. Harry was after the whole ring. He counted the part she held already his, and for the rest he was groping in Chinatown; he was trying to reach it through the imperturbable little goldsmith. But he had not reached it yet--and she could read his irritation at his failure in his violent outburst when Judge Buller so innocently flung the difficulties in his face. She knew as much now as she could bear. If Harry did not suspect Kerr, it would be strange. But--Harry waiting to make sure of a reward before he unmasked a thief! It was an ugly thought!