"Yes, yes," said Flora, with the club clamoring in her left ear.
"He is down-stairs," said Marrika.
Flora nearly let the receiver fall. Harry here? What a piece of luck! But here on his own account, at such an hour—how extraordinary!
"Hello, hello," persisted the club. "What's wanted?"
"Why, I—" Flora stammered. "It's a mistake; never mind. I don't want him now." She hoped that Harry had not heard her as he came in, since it was his informal fashion to await her in the large entrance hall. She didn't want to spoil the chance he had given her of seeming offhand about the ring. But the hall was empty, and as she descended the stairs she amused herself with the fancy that Shima had had a vision, and that she would still have to ring up the club and explain to the attendant that, after all, she wanted Mr. Cressy.
Then from the drawing-room threshold she caught sight of Harry standing in the big bay window of the drawing-room, in the same spot where Kerr had awaited her the afternoon before. Harry was tall and large and freshly colored, and yet he did not fill the room to her as the other man had done. He met her, kissed her, and she turned her head so that his lips met her cheek close beside her ear. She did not positively object to his kissing her on the lips, but her instinct was strong to offer him her cheek. He had sometimes laughed at this, but now he resented it. He insisted on his privilege, and she was passive to him, conscious of less love in this than assertion of possession.
"You are not going to Burlingame, are you?" she asked him with her first breath.
He looked down at her with a flushed and sulky air. "What difference would that make to you? I am, as it happens, but I suppose you think that's no reason for disturbing you so early." He was angry, but at what, she wondered, with creeping uneasiness. He held her and caressed her with a morose satisfaction, as if he had to make sure to himself that she was really his, and she permitted it and abetted it with a guile that astonished her.
"What is the matter?" she urged. "Are things going crookedly at Burlingame?"
"Things are going as crooked as you please, but not at Burlingame. Sit over there," he said, nodding toward the window-bench; "I want to talk to you."