The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1909-07-11
CHAPTER III

TOR tonight, from the moment he
had appeared. she had recognized
an unfamiliar mood in him, and
it had come out more the more
they had discussed the Chatworth
ring. It was not in any special word
or action on his part 1t was In his
whole presence that she felt the diff
ference. as If the afternoons scandal
had been a stimulant to him-not
through its romantic aspect, as 1T had
affected her. but merely by the daring
of the theft itself.
She wondered, as he heaped her err
mine on her shoulders. If Harry might
not have more surprises for her than
she had supposed Perhaps she had
taken him too much for granted After
all. she had known him only a year
She herself was but years old in San
Francisco, and to her new eyes Harry
had seemed an old resident. thoroughly
established. So firmly established was
he in his bachelor quarters, in the
clubs, IN the demands made upon him
by the city's society. that it had never
occurred to her he had ever lived any
where else. Nor had he happened to
mention anything of his previous life
until tonight, when he had given her in
that mention of London ball one flash
ing glimpse of former experiences.
Impulsiyely she summed up the pos
sibilities of what these might have been
She gave him look, incredulous, de-
lighted, as he handed her into the car
riage. She had actually got thrill out
of easy going, matter of fact. we'll
tubbed Harry It was a comradeship in
itself. Not that she should have told
him. This capacity of her for thrills
she had found need always to keep
carefully covered. In the days when
she was a shoeless child-those days of
her fathers labor in shaft and dump
she had dimly felt her world to be a
creature OF keen, fairly cruel humor
for all things that did not pertain to
the essence of the life it struggled for.
The wonder of the western flare of day,
the magic IN the white eyes OF the
stars before sunrise. the mystery in the
pulse of the pounding mine heard In
the dark-of such 1t had been as ruth
less of this new world that looked as
narrowly forth at as starved prospect
with even keener ridicule. Instinctively
she had turned to both the hard, bright
face they required. 1t seemed that in
the world at large this faculty of hers
was queer. And to be queer. to have
anything that other people have not,
except money, was to be open to sus-
picion. And yet from the first she had
had to be queer.
Fatherless, motherless, alone upon
the pinnacle of her fortune, she had
known that such an extraordinary en-
trance, even at this rather wide social
portal, would only be acceptable IL toned
down. CLOSED over and drawn out by a
personality sufficiently neutral suffi-
GENTLY potent and sufficiently in need of
what she had to give. The successive
ffickers OF the gas lamps through the
carriage window made of Clara s
profile so hard and fine a little me-
da1lion that 1T was impossible to con-
ceive 1t in need of anything. And yet
1t was just their mutual need that had
drawn these two women together, and
after three years 1t was still the only
thing that held them. AS much OF a
fight as she, had put up with the rest
the people who had taken her in-she
had put up the hardest with Clara.
Yet of them all Clara was the only one
she had failed to capture. Clara was
always there in the middle of her af-
fairs. but surveying them from dis
lance, and Flora's struggle with her
had resolved itself into the attempt to
keep her from seeing too much, from
seeing more than she herself saw.
Clara's seeing. thus far. had always
been to help, but Flora sometimes
wondered whether in an emergency
this help could be depended on
whether Clara could give anything
without exacting a price.
Their dubious intimacy had created
for Flora a special sort of lonliness-
a loneliness which lacked the security
of solitude; and 1t was partly as an
escape from this that she had accepted
Harry Cressy. BY herself she coaIC
never have escaped. The initiative
was not hers But he had presented
himself. he had insisted. had overruled
her objections, had captured her be-
fore she knew whether she wanted II
or not-and held her now. fascinated
by his very success in capturing her
and by his beautiful rudy masculinity