THE MYSTERY TAKES HUMAN FORM
He turned from the window where he had presented a long, drooping, patient back, and his warm, ironic mirth—the same that had played with her the first night—flashed out at sight of her. But after a moment another expression mixed with it, sharpened it, and fastened upon her with an incredulous intentness.
She stood on the threshold, pale, and brilliant still in her blaze of anger, equal, at last, to anything. Kerr, as he signaled to her with every lineament of his enlivened face, his interest, his defiance, his uncontrollability, was not the man of her imaginary conversations. He was not here to be used and disposed of; but, as he came toward her, the new admiration in his face was bringing her reassurance that neither was she. The thought that her moment of bitter incredulity had made her formidable gave her courage to fight even him, of whom she was so much in awe; gave her courage even to smile, though she grew hot at the first words he spoke.
"You should not be brave and then run away, you know."
She thought of her rush up the stairs again. "I had to go back to see Mrs. Britton." (Oh, how she had seen her!)
It seemed to Flora that everything she had been through in the last few moments was blazoned on her face. But he only looked a little more gravely at her, though his sardonic eye-brow twitched.
"Ah, I thought you only ran back to hide in your doll's house."
She laughed. Such a picture of her!
"Well, at any rate, now I've come out, what have you to say to me?"
"Now you've come out," he repeated, and looked at her this time with full gravity, as if he realized finally how far she'd come.