ed 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."

Harry had the air of one about to scold, and certainly Flora thought if
anybody was carrying matters with a high hand, it wasn't herself; but
she didn't follow his direction. She continued to stand, while he,
sitting on the table's edge, drumming the top of his hat, gloomily
regarded her.

"Well?" she persisted, troubled by this look of his, and this silence.

"Look here," he began, "I have to be away a couple of days and I wish
you'd do me a favor."

Flora's thought flew to the ring. Was he going to ask for it back, to
have it reset, as he had promised o