“Nora!” Mrs. Harrigan was not pleased with this jest. Any reference to the past was distasteful to her ears. She, too, went regularly to confession, but up to the present time had omitted the sin of being ashamed of her former poverty and environment. She had taken it for granted that upon her shoulders rested the future good fortune of the Harrigans. They had money; all that was required was social recognition. She found it a battle within a battle. The good-natured reluctance of her husband and the careless indifference of her daughter were as hard to combat as the icy aloofness of those stars into whose orbit she was pluckily striving to steer the family bark. It never entered her scheming head that the reluctance of the father and the indifference of the daughter were the very conditions that drew society nearward, for the simple novelty of finding two persons who did not care in the least whether they were recognized or not.
The trio invaded the lace shop, and Nora and her mother agreed to bury the war-hatchet in their mutual love of Venetian and Florentine fineries. Celeste pretended to be interested, but in truth she was endeavoring to piece together the few facts she had been able to extract from the rubbish of conjecture. Courtlandt and Nora had met somewhere before the beginning of her own intimacy with the singer. They certainly must have formed an extraordinary friendship, for Nora’s subsequent vindictiveness could not possibly have arisen out of the ruins of an indifferent acquaintance. Nora could not be moved from the belief that Courtlandt had abducted her; but Celeste was now positive that he had had nothing to do with it. He did not impress her as a man who would abduct a woman, hold her prisoner for five days, and then liberate her without coming near her to press his vantage, rightly or wrongly. He was too strong a personage. He was here in Bellaggio, and attached to that could be but one significance.
Why, then, had he not spoken at the photographer’s? Perhaps she herself had been sufficient reason for his dumbness. He had recognized her, and the espionage of the night in Paris was no longer a mystery. Nora had sent her to follow him; why then all this bitterness, since she had not been told where he had gone? Had Nora forgotten to inquire? It was possible that, in view of the startling events which had followed, the matter had slipped entirely from Nora’s mind. Many a time she had resorted to that subtle guile known only of woman to trap the singer. But Nora never stumbled, and her smile was as firm a barrier to her thoughts, her secrets, as a stone wall would have been.
Celeste had known about Herr Rosen’s infatuation. Aside from that which concerned this stranger, Nora had withheld no real secret from her. Herr Rosen had been given his congé, but that did not prevent him from sending fabulous baskets of flowers and gems, all of which were calmly returned without comment. Whenever a jewel found its way into a bouquet of flowers from an unknown, Nora would promptly convert it into money and give the proceeds to some charity. It afforded the singer no small amusement to show her scorn in this fashion. Yes, there was one other little mystery which she did not confide to her friends. Once a month, wherever she chanced to be singing, there arrived a simple bouquet of marguerites, in the heart of which they would invariably find an uncut emerald. Nora never disposed of these emeralds. The flowers she would leave in her dressing-room; the emerald would disappear. Was there some one else?
Mrs. Harrigan took the omnibus up to the villa. It was generally too much of a climb for her. Nora and Celeste preferred to walk.
“What am I going to do, Celeste? He is here, and over at Cadenabbia last night I had a terrible scene with him. In heaven’s name, why can’t they let me be?”
“Herr Rosen?”
“Yes.”
“Why not speak to your father?”
“And have a fisticuff which would appear in every newspaper in the world? No, thank you. There is enough scandalous stuff being printed as it is, and I am helpless to prevent it.”