"Nora!" Mrs. Harrigan was not pleased with this jest. Any reference to the
past was distasteful to her ears. She, too, went regularly to confession,
but up to the present time had omitted the sin of being ashamed of her
former poverty and environment. She had taken it for granted that upon her
shoulders rested the future good fortune of the Harrigans. They had money;
all that was required was social recognition. She found it a battle within
a battle. The good-natured reluctance of her husband and the careless
indifference of her daughter were as hard to combat as the icy aloofness
of those stars into whose orbit she was pluckily striving to steer the
family bark. It never entered her scheming head that the reluctance of the
father and the indifference of the daughter were the very conditions that
drew society nearward, for the simple novelty of finding two persons who
did not care in the least whether they were recognized or not.
The trio invaded the lace shop, and Nora and her mother agreed to bury the
war-hatchet in their mutual love of Venetian and Florentine fineries.
Celeste pretended to be interested, but in truth she was endeavoring to
piece together the few facts she had been able to extract from the rubbish
of conjecture. Courtlandt and Nora had met somewhere before the beginning
of her own intimacy with the singer. They certainly must have formed an
extraordinary friendship, for Nora's subsequent vindictiveness could not
possibly have arisen out of the ruins of an indifferent acquaintance. Nora
could not be moved from the belief that Courtlandt had abducted her; but
Celeste was now positive that he had had nothing to do with it. He did not
impress her as a man who would abduct a woman, hold her prisoner for five
days, and then liberate her without coming near her to press his vantage,
rightly or wrongly. He was too strong a personage. He was here in
Bellaggio, and attached to that could be but one significance.
Why, then, had he not spoken at the photographer's? Perhaps she herself
had been sufficient reason for his dumbness. He had recognized her, and
the espionage of the night in Paris was no longer a mystery. Nora had sent
her to follow him; why then all this bitterness, since she had not been
told where he had gone? Had Nora forgotten to inquire? It was possible
that, in view of the startling events which had followed, the matter had
slipped entirely from Nora's mind. Many a time she had resorted to that
subtle guile known only of woman to trap the singer. But Nora never
stumbled, and her smile was as firm a barrier to her thoughts, her
secrets, as a stone wall would have been.
Celeste had known about Herr Rosen's infatuation. Aside from that which
concerned this stranger, Nora had withheld no real secret from her. Herr
Rosen had been given his congé, but that did not prevent him from sending
fabulous baskets of flowers and gems, all of which were calmly returned
without comment. Whenever a jewel found its way into a bouquet of flowers
from an unknown, Nora would promptly convert it into money and give the
proceeds to some charity. It afforded the singer no small amusement to
show her scorn in this fashion. Yes, there was one other little mystery
which she did not confide to her friends. Once a month, wherever she
chanced to be singing, there arrived a simple bouquet of marguerites, in
the heart of which they would invariably find an uncut emerald. Nora never
disposed of these emeralds. The flowers she would leave in her
dressing-room; the emerald would disappear. Was there some one else?