rd she turned away from
him. Whatever she said, he had her. But, if she said nothing and still
he came to-morrow, whatever she did then, he would have to take the
consequences of his insistence. Her only desire now was to evade him,
lest he should force her out of her non-committal attitude. She wanted
to shield herself from further pursuit.

She couldn't escape yet, for the figures on the stage were still
gesticulating and trilling, and the people around her, in the small
inclosure where she sat, hemmed her in so that she could no more move
away from Kerr than if she had been that impaled specimen he had made
her feel at their first meeting. The most she could do was to turn away,
but even thus, with her eyes averted and her ears full of Ella's voice,
she was still acutely aware of him, sitting looking straight before him
across the black house with a face worn, wary, weathered to any
catastrophe, and such an air of being alertly fixed on something a long
way off, that her silence made no more difference to him than her
flutterings and her rudeness. And yet she knew he was only waiting;
waiting his chance to get at her again and make her commit herself; and
that, she was determined, should not happen.

What had already happened, through its very violence, had left an
impression like a dream. It seemed unreal, and yet it had made her
forget everything else--the stage, the people around her, and even the
very sapphire that had generated her inexplicable situation. She drew
her glove over the ring. The lights were imminent. It would be hard to
hide the great flash of the jewel. And besides, she didn't trust it. She
couldn't tell in what direction it might not strike out a spark of
horror next.

The rustle of final departure was all over the house. The people in the
box were stirring and beginning to stand up; and Flora saw Kerr turn and
look at her. She wanted some one to stand between herself and Kerr, and
it was to Harry that she turned; not alone that he was so large and
adequate, but because she thought she saw in him an inclination to step
into that very place where she wanted him. She saw he was a little
sullen, and though she didn't suspect him quite of jealousy, she
wondered if he had not a right to blame her for the appearance of
flirtation that she and Kerr must have presented. Then how much more
might he blame her for what she had actually done--for deliberately
showing the sapphire to Kerr! The very thought