Clara took out an old pocket-book, shiny with years, shook from it a shower of receipts, newspaper clippings, verses. She let them lie. She took out a long violet box with a perfumer's seal upon it. It held a bunch of dried violets. She took out a bonbonnière of gold filigree. It was empty. A powder box, a glove box, a froth of lace, a handful of jewelers' boxes, a jewel flung loose into the drawer. This she pounced upon. It was a brooch! She let it fall—turned to the chiffonier; upended the two vases of Venetian glass, lifted the lids of jars and boxes, finally came to the drawers. One by one she took them out, turned the contents of each rapidly over, and left them standing, gaping white ruffles and lace upon the floor. She took up daintily, in her white kid fingers, slippers, shook them upside down. She opened the door of the closet, and disappeared within. There was audible the flutterings of all the distressed garments, with little busy pauses. Then Clara came out, with her hat a little crooked; and stood in the middle of the room still with her absorbed and sober face, looking over the gaping drawers, pulled out and rifled, with their contents heaped up and streaming over the floor.
Her eye fell upon the waste basket. She turned it upside down, and stooped over the litter. She gathered it up in her white gloves and dropped it back. Then, for the first time, she glanced at the bath-room door; stood looking at it, as if it had occurred to her to look in the soap dish. Then she turned again to the room, to the dressing-table. She put back the paste-board jewelers' boxes, the jeweled pin, the laces, which she shook out and folded daintily, the glove and powder boxes, the gold bonbonnière, the long violet box, the leather pocket-book,—each deftly and unhesitatingly in the place from which she had taken it, and all the heaps of white handkerchiefs.
One by one she laid back in the chiffonier drawers, the garments, properly and neatly folded, that she had so hastily snatched out of them. The sun, streaming full into the room, caught gleams in her pale hair, and struck blindingly upon the heaps of white around her, and made two dazzling points of her gloved hands that moved as deftly as hands uncovered. She slid back the last drawer into the chiffonier, and rose from her knees, lightly dusting off the front of her gown; went to the closet door and closed it. She stood before it a moment with a face perplexed and thoughtful, then turned alertly toward the outer door. As she passed the mirror she looked into it, and touched her hat straight again, but the action was subconscious. Clara wasn't thinking of it.
Flora stood as if she were afraid to move, while Clara crossed her bedroom, stopped, went on and closed the outer door behind her. And even after that soft little concussion she stood still, burning, choking, struggling with the overwhelming force of an affront whose import she did not yet realize. Out in her sunny dressing-room all the outraged furniture stood meek and in order, frauding the eye to believe that nothing had happened! She felt she couldn't look things in the face a moment longer. She hid her face in the folds of her dressing-gown.
Why, she had thought that such things couldn't happen! She had thought that people's private belongings, like their persons, were inviolable. They all always talked, she had talked, about such things as if they were mere nothings. They had talked about the very taking of the Crew Idol as if it were a splendid joke! But she had not dreamed what such things were like when they were near. When they were held up to you naked they were like this! In the shame of it she could no more have faced Clara than if she had surprised Clara naked.
She snatched the ring out of the pocket of her gown and clutched it in her hand. Was there no place in the world where she could be sure of safety for this?
With trembling fingers she fastened it again to the chain about her neck. She thought of Kerr down-stairs waiting for her. Well, she would rather keep it with her. Then, at least, she would know when it was taken from her. Still in the fury of her outraged faith, she passed through her violated rooms, and slowly along the hall and down the stairs.