"I can't, you
know, Lorne. I didn't really say you might get it; and
now you'll have to keep it till--till the time comes.
But this much I will say--it's the sweetest thing, and
you've shown the loveliest taste, and if it weren't such
a dreadful give-away I'd like to wear it awfully."
They discussed it with argument, with endearment, with
humour, and reproach, but her inflexible basis soon showed
through their talk: she would not wear the ring. So far
he prevailed, that it was she, not he, who kept it. Her
insistence that he should take it back brought something
like anger out of him; and in the surprise of this she
yielded so much. She did it unwillingly at the time, but
afterward, when she tried on the thing again in the
privacy of her own room; she was rather satisfied to have
it, safe under lock and key, a flashing, smiling mystery
to visit when she liked and reveal when she would.
"Lorne could never get me such a beauty again if he lost
it," she advised herself, "and he's awfully careless.
And I'm not sure that I won't tell Eva Delarue, just to
show it to her. She's as close as wax."
One feels a certain sorrow for the lover on his homeward
way, squaring his shoulders against the foolish perversity
of the feminine mind, resolutely guarding his heart from
any hint of real reprobation.
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