oment--a long-featured, whitish,
modeled face, draped in a dull green veil, a tall figure whose flowing
skirts of black melted away into the background of the hall--before she
came forward and met her hostess' hand with a clasp firm and ready.

"I'm so glad to find you here," she said. She looked directly into
Flora's eyes, into the very center of her agitation. She held her
tremulous hand as if neither of these manifestations surprised her; as
if a young woman and a young man in colloquy might often be found in
such a state of mind.

Flora's first emotion was a guilty relief that, after all, her face had
not betrayed Kerr. But she had no sooner murmured his name to Mrs.
Herrick, no sooner had that lady's gray eyes lighted upon him, than they
altered their clear confidence. The situation as reflected in Flora
looked naive enough, but there was nothing naive about Kerr. The very
perfection of his coolness, there in the face of her burning agitation,
was appalling. Oh, why couldn't he see, Flora thought wildly, how it was
damning him--how it was showing him so practised, so marvelously equal
to any emergency, that his presence here among fleeces could be nothing
less than wolfish?

Mrs. Herrick's face was taking on an expression no less than wary. What
he was, Mrs. Herrick could not dream. She could not even suspect what
Flora believed. But in the light of her terrible discovery Flora dared
not have him suspected at all. The chasms of distrust and suspicion that
had been opening between them she forgot. In a flash she was ready to
throw herself in front of this man, to cover him from suspicion, even
though by so doing she took it upon herself.

Now, if she had ever in her life, she talked over the top of her
feelings; and though at first to her ears her voice rang out horribly
alone, presently Mrs. Herrick was helping her, adding words to words.
It was the house they spoke of, the San Mateo house, the subject about
which Flora knew Mrs. Herrick had come to talk; but to Flora it was no
longer a subject. It was a barrier, a shield. In this emergency it was
the only subject large enough to fill the gap, and much as Flora had
liked the idea of it, she had never built the house so large, so vivid,
so wonderfully towering to please her fancy as she was doing now to
cover Kerr. With questions she led Mrs. Herrick on to spin out the
subject, to play it over with lights and shades, to beat all around it.
And all the while she