But he followed her closely through the crowd to the door. "Yes," he said quickly under his breath, "in a few days, perhaps to-morrow, as soon as you get rid of it, you won't mind meeting me! What are you afraid of? Surely not me?"
She was, but hotly denied it.
"I am not afraid of you. I am afraid of them!"
"Of them!" He peered at her. "What are you talking about now?"
Ah, she had said too much! She bit her lip. They had reached the corner, and the gliding cable car was approaching. She turned to him with a last appeal.
"Don't ask me anything! Don't come with me! Don't follow me!"
Not until she was safely inside the car did she dare look back at him. He was still on the corner, and he raised his hat and smiled so reassuringly that she was half-way home before she realized that, in spite of all she had urged upon him, he had not committed himself to any promise. And yet, she thought in dismay, he had almost made her give away Harry's confidence. She was seeing more and more clearly that this was the danger of meeting him. He always got something out of her and never, by chance, gave her anything in return. If he should seek her to-night she dared not be at home! Any place would be safer than her own house. It would be better to fulfil her engagement and go to the reception with Clara and Harry. That was a house Kerr did not know.
It was awkward to have to announce this sudden change of plan after her pretenses of the morning, but of late she had lived too constantly with danger for Clara's lifted eyebrows to daunt her. The mere trivial act of being dressed each day was fraught with danger. To get the sapphire off her person before Marrika should appear; to put it back somehow after Marrika had done; to shift it from one place to another as she wore gowns cut high or low—and every moment in fear lest she be discovered in the act! This was her daily manœuver. To-night she clasped the chain around her waist beneath her petticoats. But Marrika's sensitive fingers, smoothing over, for the last time, the close-fitting front of the gown, felt the sapphire, fumbled with it, and tried to adjust it like a button.
"That is all right," Flora said quickly. "Nothing shows." Was it always to make itself known, she thought uneasily, no matter how it was hid?
She was ready early, in the hope that Harry might come, as he had been wont to do, a little before the appointed hour. But he turned up without a moment to spare. Clara was down-stairs in her cloak when he appeared. There was no chance for a word at dinner. But if she could not manage it later in the wider field of the reception, why, then she deserved to fail in everything.