The Coast of Chance - Lucia Chamberlain

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silvery lights in eyes and hair, and confronted the facts with an alert and calculating observation; but Flora was tawny, toned from brown to ivory through all the gamut of gold—hair color of a panther's hide, eyes dark hazel, glinting through dust-colored lashes, chin round like a fruit. The pressure of her fingers accented the slight uptilt of her brows to elfishness, and her look was introspective. She might, instead of wondering on the outside, have been the very center of the mystery itself, toying with unthinkable possibilities of revelation. She looked far over the head of Clara Britton's annoyance that there should be no clue.

      "Why, don't you see," she pointed out, "that is just the fun of it? It might be anybody. It might be you, or me, or Ella Buller. Though I would much prefer to think it was some one we didn't know so well—some one strange and fascinating, who will presently go slipping out the Golden Gate in a little junk boat, so that no one need be embarrassed."

      Clara looked back with extraordinary intentness.

      "Oh, it's not possible the thing is stolen. There's some mistake! And if it were"—her eyes seemed to open a little wider to take in this possibility—"they will have detectives all around the water front by to-night. Any one would find it difficult to get away," she pointed out. "You see, the ring is an important piece of property."

      "Of course; I know," Flora murmured. A faint twitch of humor pulled her mouth, but the passionate romantic color was dying out of her face. How was it that one's romances could be so cruelly pulled down to earth? She ought to have learned by this time, she thought, never to fly her little flag of romance except to an empty horizon—never, at least, to fly it in Clara's face. It was always as promptly surrounded by Clara's common sense as San Francisco would be surrounded by the police. But still she couldn't quite come down to Clara. "At least," she sighed, "he has saved me an awful expense, whoever took it, for I should have had to have it."

      Mrs. Britton surveyed this statement consideringly. "Was it the most valuable thing in the collection?"

      Flora hesitated in the face of the alert question. "I—don't know. But it was the most remarkable. It was a Chatworth heirloom, the papers say, and was given to Bessie at the time of her marriage." The thought of the death that had so quickly followed that marriage gave Flora a little shiver, but no shade of the tragedy touched Clara. There was nothing but speculation in Clara's eyes—that, and a little disappointment. "Then they will put off the auction—if it is really so," she mused.

      "Oh, yes," Flora mourned, "they can put it off as long as they please. The only thing I wanted is gone—and I hadn't even seen it."

      "Well, I wouldn't be too sure. There may be some mistake about it. The papers love a sensation."

      "But there must be something in it, Clara. Why, they closed the doors and searched them—that crowd! It's ridiculous!"

      Clara Britton glanced at the empty place. "Then that must be what has kept him."

      "Who? Oh, Harry!" It took Flora a moment to remember she had been expecting Harry. She hoped Clara had not noticed it. Clara always had too much the assumption that she was taking him only as the best-looking, best-natured, safest bargain presented. "He will be here," she reassured, "but I wish he would hurry. His dinner will be spoiled; and, poor dear, he likes his dinner so much!"

      The faint silver sound of the electric bell, a precipitate double peal, seemed to uphold this statement. The women faced each other in a moment's suspense, a moment of expectation, such as the advance column may feel at sight of a scout hotfoot from the field of battle. There were muffled movements in the hall, then light, even steps crossing the drawing-room. Those light steps always suggested a slight frame, and, as always, Flora was re-surprised at his bulk as now it appeared between the parted curtains, the dull black and sharp white of his evening clothes topped by his square, fresh-colored face.

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      "Well, Flora," he said, "I know I'm late," and took the hand she held to him from where she sat. Her face danced with pleasure. Yes, he was magnificent, she thought, as he crossed with his light stride to Mrs. Britton's chair. He could even stand the harsh lines and lights of evening clothes. He dominated their ugly convention with his height, his face so ruddy and fresh under the pale brown of his hair, his alert, assured, deft movement. His high good nature had the effect of sweetening for him even Clara Britton's flavorless manner. The "We were speaking of you," with which she saw him to his seat, had all the warmth of a smile, but a smile far in the background of Flora's immediate possession. Indeed, Flora had seldom had so much to say to Harry as at this moment of her excitement over what he had actually seen. For the evidence that he had seen something was vivid in his face. She had never found him so splendidly alive. She had never seen him, it came to her, quite like this before.

      She shook the paper at him. "Tell us everything, instantly!"

      He gaily acknowledged her right to make him thus stand and deliver. He shot his hands into the air with the lightening vivacity that was in him a sort of wit. "Not guilty," he grinned at her.

      "Harry, you know you were in it. The papers have you the most important personage."

      "Oh, not all that," he denied her allegation. "They had the whole lot of us cooped up together for investigation for as much as two hours. I thought I shouldn't have time to dress! I'm as hungry as a hawk!" He rolled it out with the full gusto with which he was by this time engaged on his first course.

      "Poor dear," said Flora with cooing mock-sympathy, "and did they starve it? But would it mind telling us, now that it has its food, what is true, and what was the gallant part it played this afternoon?"

      "Well," he followed her whimsical lead, "the chief detective and I were the star performers. I found the ring wasn't there, and he found he couldn't find it."

      "Don't you know any more than the paper?" Flora mourned.

      "Considerably less—if I know the papers." He grinned with a fine flash of even teeth. "What do you want me to say?"

      "Why, stupid, the adventures of Harry Cressy, Esquire. How did you feel?"

      "Thirsty."

      "Oh, Harry!" She glanced about, as if for a missile to threaten him with.

      "Upon my word! But look here—wait a minute!" he arrived deliberately at what was required of him. "Never mind how I felt; but if you want to know the way it happened—here's your Maple Room." He began a diagram with forks on the cloth before him, and Clara, who had watched their sparring from her point of vantage in the background, now leaned forward, as if at last they were getting to the point.

      "This is the case, furthest from the door." He planted a salt-cellar in his silver inclosure. "I come in very early, at half-past two, before the crowd; fail to meet you there." He made mischievous bows to right and left. "I go out again. But first I see this ring."

      "What was it like?" Flora demanded.

      "Like?" Harry turned a speculative eye to the dull glow of the candelabrum, as if between its points of flame he conjured up the vision of the vanished jewel. "Like a bit of an old gold heathen god curled round himself, with his head, which was mostly two yellow sapphires, between his knees, and a big, blue stone on top. Soft, yellow gold, so fine you could almost dent it. And carved! Even through a glass every line of it is right." He paused and ran the tip of his finger along the silver outline of his diagram, as if the mere memory of the precious eyes of the little god had power to arrest all other consideration. "Well, there he was," he pulled himself up, "and I can't remember when a thing of that sort has stayed by me so. I couldn't seem to get away from it. I dropped into the club and talked to Buller about it. He got keen, and I went back with him to have another look at it. Well, at the door Buller stops to speak to a chap going out—a crazy Englishman

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