But between the threads of interest the table group wove together, kept flashing up her furtive desire to be away, to be at home, to see what had happened to the sapphire. Of course, she knew that nothing could have happened; but she wanted to look at it, to open the casket and see the flash of it before her eyes. For was she quite sure that it was not one of those fairy gifts, which, put into the hand in a blaze of beauty, may be found in the pocket as withered leaves? Yet her tenacious nets of duty caught and caught, and again caught her, so that when the carriage finally fetched her home it was between lighted street-lamps.
They were dining early that night on account of the Bullers' box party, but it was nearly eight o'clock before Flora reached the house. And it was, of course, for that reason that she ran up-stairs--ran wildly, regardlessly, before the eyes of Shima--and along the hall, her high heels clacking on the hard floors, and through her bedroom to the dressing-room, snatched open the table drawer, unlocked the casket with a twitch of the key--and, ah, it was there! It was really real! Why, what had she expected? She was laughing at herself.
She was gay in her relief at getting back to the sapphire, but at the same time she was already wondering what she should do about it that night--take it with her or leave it alone? Dared she wear it on her finger under her glove? Clara might notice the unfamiliar form of the jewel through the thin kid. Harry's warning had been phrased conventionally enough, but the hints his words conveyed had expanded in her mind--fear not only of Clara's laughter, that such a jewel had come from a junk shop, but of her wonder, her questions, her ability of getting out the story of the whole erratic proceeding, even to the strange pantomime between Harry and the blue-eyed Chinaman. Clara was marvelous!
Flora watched her curiously across the table that evening, wondering what was that quality of hers by which she acquired. Hitherto Flora had accepted it as a fact without question, but now she had a desire to place it. It was not beauty, for though Clara was pretty, like a polished Greuze, she was colorless and flavorless, lacking the vivid heat of magnetism. More probably it consisted in a certain sort of sweetness Clara could produce on occasions, a way she had of looking and speaking which Flora could only describe as smooth. But smooth without texture or softness; smooth as quick-flowing water, smooth as glass--a surface upon which even caution might lose its equilibrium. For the danger in Clara was that she was disarming. There was nothing antagonistic in her. One noticed her slowly. The flat tones of her voice made background for other people's conversations. The pale tints of her gown blended with the pale tones of her hair and flesh. Beside Clara's exquisite gradations Flora felt herself without shades, a creature of violent contrasts and impulses. If Clara had been going to carry the ring about with her she would have had a reason for it. But Flora had nothing but a silly fancy.