Then I noticed an odd thing. The woman in the glass was tearing open the front of her gown: tearing it open with shaking frantic hands to get at something that she wore against her heart in a little silken bag.
I did not see her again for a long while. When I looked up at last she was still standing there: only the white lips in the gay-tragic face were smiling, a brooding subtle smile, that had in it a strange mingling of triumph, despair, hatred—and some other desperate element that might have been hope or madness; and the little leather jewel-box in her hands contained two ear-rings. The lost one had been found.
Steps in the verandah dragged me away from the glass and the fascinating things I saw there. I crossed the room swiftly, and closing the door locked it; there was also a wooden button to turn, and a large bolt which slid into its socket soundlessly.
I returned to the dressing-table and my contemplation of the contents of the pretty new box from Durban. I examined them as carefully as if I were a jeweller; as if I had never seen a turquoise ear-ring before and might never see one again. The gold setting of one was tarnished with mud; tiny particles of dirt were still clinging to it; but the stone was undimmed blue, and resembled in every particular its radiant mate which had plainly never left a white velvet bed to make acquaintance with mud. They were screw earrings, meant to pass through a hole in the ear and screw behind the lobe with a little gold washer like a miniature bicycle-nut. Both nuts were in place and the hold wire thread on which they were screwed was quite unworn. When I had removed all traces of mud and stain from the one and polished it with a handkerchief, they were both as flawless and new as when they left the jeweller’s; you could not tell one from the other.
The only interruptions I suffered in my engrossing occupation were the sounds of tins and bottles being opened and occasional shouts to me to hurry up and come to supper. To these I paid no attention until they were accompanied by thumpings on the door.
“What have you locked yourself in for? Do hurry up, for God’s sake! I’m as hungry as the devil. Deirdre! what on earth are you doing?”
I was considering with her the fate of the woman in the glass.
“Are we or are we not going to eat anything to-night?”