And she pictured herself lying before him in a crimson pool, saw a black, surging crowd pushing into the dressing-room from the hotel corridors, felt herself lifted up tenderly by some one. Would Ned Stillman pick her up? Or perhaps Flint?... She imagined the trial—Danilo pale and grief-worn, incapable of caring whether he lived or died, oblivious to his surroundings. Temporary insanity ... that would be his lawyer's plea.... The black smudge was still there ... it was too ridiculous! She fumbled with her free hand and, lifting the edge of Miss Proll's lace shawl deliberately, wiped the spot from the tip of Danilo's nose.
At that moment she heard a sharp report, glass came crashing to the floor.
"Well, at least his face is clean!" flashed through her mind.... She felt herself sinking backward....
"Yes, a pistol-shot!" the maid was reiterating. Claire opened her eyes. She was lying upon the lounge and the flowers had been thrown unceremoniously upon the floor and were being trampled underfoot. The orchids, crushed and abandoned, looked particularly sorry. She had an impulse to rise and rescue them.
"Nonsense!" It was Lily Condor's voice. "She merely fainted. What you heard must have been falling glass. She struck the mirror as she fell."
An enormous relief came over Claire. She closed her eyes again. "Where is Danilo?" she asked herself.... Suddenly she remembered every detail of what had gone before—the pistol, the black smudge, the sharp report, the crash of falling glass. It was the black smudge on Danilo's nose that had saved her. She realized that now. What a ridiculous thing life was, anyway! And what trivial circumstances determined its issues! The wrong seats at a church social had yielded her Stillman. A black smudge upon the nose of an emotionally shaken man had snatched her from death. What grotesque impulse had moved her to reach forward at the critical moment and flick the tip of Danilo's nose with Miss Proll's lace shawl? Miss Proll's lace shawl! Suppose she had not worn it? Would she have attempted to remove the speck with a bare finger? She doubted it. Then even Miss Proll's lace shawl had played its part! It was all very puzzling; the pattern of life became too intricate, too full of flaming colors that in the weaving seemed of dullest drab.... The muffled talking about her began again.
"Excuse me for troubling you," she heard Mrs. Condor say, "but Claire here.... I have looked all over for Danilo.... Oh, nothing serious!... Her mother.... A little old maid? It must be the dressmaker who.... Yes, bring her in, by all means."
Claire roused herself. She was sitting on the edge of the couch when Ned Stillman came through the door with Miss Proll. Claire understood at once. She rose to her feet. Lily Condor started toward her.
"Oh no—really, I am quite all right. What is the matter? Is my mother...."