Clara stood still, even after the door had closed upon Harry, and oddly, and rather horridly, she wore the same aspect she had worn the day when she had looked intently and absorbedly upon the rifled contents of Flora's room.
"Good morning," she said, and, pushing up her little misty veil, sat down with her back to the deserted breakfast table, and waited meekly, like one who has been summoned.
"I am very glad you've come," Flora said. Her wits were still all a-flutter from the appearance of that little heap of gold. She came forward and stood in Harry's place. She was face to face with the person and the question, but before the great import of it, and before the marble front of Clara's patience, she felt helpless. There was silence in the room, perfect silence in the garden; but moving along the hedged walk all at once she saw the flutter of Mrs. Herrick's gown, and then in profile Kerr beside her. The sight of him gave her her proper inspiration. She turned upon Clara.
"What are you going to do with the picture of Farrell Wand?"
For the first time she saw Clara startled. Her lips parted, and the breath that came and went between them was audible. But she was herself again before she spoke. "Do with it? Why I don't know." Her fingers drummed the table.
"Whatever you do," Flora began, "please, oh, please don't do anything immediately."
Clara's eyebrows rose like graceful swallows. "You seem to anticipate pretty clearly what I _am_ going to do."
"I suppose you're going to do what any one would who had a clue, and could bring a person to justice," Flora candidly responded. "But if ever I have made anything easy for you, Clara, won't you this time make it easy for me? I'm not asking you to give up the picture, I'm only asking you to wait."
Clara nodded toward the window, through which Kerr could still be seen with Mrs. Herrick. "On account of him?"
For the first time Clara smiled. It crept out upon her face, as it were involuntarily, but she sat there smiling in contemplation for quite ten seconds. At last, "You want me to suppress my information? My dear Flora, don't you think you want me to do more than is honest?"
"Honest!" Flora cried. The words sounded hideous to her on Clara's tongue; and yet what right had she, she thought with shame, to judge of Clara's honesty when she herself was leagued with a thief? "Clara," she said humbly, before this upholder of the right, "I can't pretend I'm not suppressing things. I've only asked you to see me before you do anything more. Now, you've come. Will you tell me one thing--did you bring the picture with you?"