“You — mighty gay, looking at me.”
“Ah, but look at yourself. There! I declare you’re more afraid of your own eyes than of mine, aren’t you?”
“I am,” she said, and he kissed her with rapture.
“It’s your birthday,” he said.
“I know,” she replied.
“So do I. You promised me something.”
“What?” she asked.
“Here — see if you like it”— he gave her a little case. She opened it, and instinctively slipped the ring on her finger. He made a movement of pleasure. She looked up, laughing breathlessly at him.
“Now!” said he, in times of finality.
“Ah!” she exclaimed in a strange, thrilled voice.
He caught her in his arms.
After a while, when they could talk rationally again, she said: “Do you think they will come to my party?”
“I hope not — By Heaven!”
“But — oh yes! We have made all preparations.”
“What does that matter! Ten thousand folks here today —!”
“Not ten thousand — only five or six. I shall be wild if they can’t come.”
“You want them?”
“We have asked them — and everything is ready — and I do want us to have a party one day.”
“But today — damn it all, Lettie!”
“But I did want my party today. Don’t you think they’ll come?”
“They won’t if they’ve any sense!”
“You might help me —” she pouted.
“Well, I’ll be-! and you’ve set your mind on having a houseful of people today?”
“You know how we look forward to it — my party. At any rate — I know Tom Smith will come — and I’m almost sure Emily Saxton will.”
He bit his moustache angrily, and said at last:
“Then I suppose I’d better send John round for the lot.”
“It wouldn’t be much trouble, would it?”
“No trouble at all.”
“Do you know,” she said, twisting the ring on her finger, “it makes me feel as if I tied something round my finger to remember by. It somehow remains in my consciousness all the time.”
“At any rate,” said he, “I have got you.”
After dinner, when we were alone, Lettie sat at the table, nervously fingering her ring.
“It is pretty, Mother, isn’t it?” she said a trifle pathetically.
“Yes, very pretty. I have always liked Leslie,” replied my mother.
“But it feels so heavy — it fidgets me. I should like to take it off.”
“You are like me, I never could wear rings. I hated my wedding ring for months.”
“Did you, Mother?”
“I longed to take it off and put it away. But after a while I got used to it.”
“I’m glad this isn’t a wedding ring.”
“Leslie says it is as good,” said I.
“Ah well, yes! But still it is different —” She put the jewels round under her finger, and looked at the plain gold band — then she twisted it back quickly, saying:
“I’m glad it’s not — not yet. I begin to feel a woman, little Mother — I feel grown up today.”
My mother got up suddenly and went and kissed Lettie fervently.
“Let me kiss my girl good-bye,” she said, and her voice was muffled with tears. Lettie clung to my mother, and sobbed a few quiet sobs, hidden in her bosom. Then she lifted her face, which was wet with tears, and kissed my mother, murmuring:
“No, Mother — no — o —!”
About three o’clock the carriage came with Leslie and Marie. Both Lettie and I were upstairs, and I heard Marie come tripping up to my sister.
“Oh, Lettie, he is in such a state of excitement, you never knew. He took me with him to buy it — let me see it on. I think it’s awfully lovely. Here, let me help you to do your hair — all in those little rolls — it will look charming. You’ve really got beautiful hair — there’s so much life in it — it’s a pity to twist it into a coil as you do. I wish my hair were a bit longer — though really, it’s all the better for this fashion — don’t you like it? — it’s ‘so chic’— I think these little puffs are just fascinating — it is rather long for them — but it will look ravishing. Really, my eyes, and eyebrows, and eyelashes are my best features, don’t you think?”
Marie, the delightful, charming little creature, twittered on. I went downstairs.
Leslie started when I entered the room, but seeing only me, he leaned forward again, resting his arms on his knees, looking in the fire.
“What the Dickens is she doing?” he asked.
“Dressing.”
“Then we may keep on waiting. Isn’t it a deuced nuisance, these people coming?”
“Well, we generally have a good time.”
“Oh — it’s all very well — we’re not in the same boat, you and me.”
“Fact,” said I, laughing.
“By Jove, Cyril, you don’t know what it is to be in love. I never thought — I couldn’t ha’ believed I should be like it. And the time when it isn’t at the top of your blood, it’s at the bottom:—‘the Girl, the Girl’.”
He stared into the fire.
“It seems pressing you, pressing you on. Never leaves you alone a moment.”
Again he lapsed into reflection.
“Then, all at once, you remember how she kissed you, and all your blood jumps afire.”
He mused again for a while — or rather, he seemed fiercely to con over his sensations.
“You know,” he said, “I don’t think she feels for me as I do for her.”
“Would you want her to?” said I.
“I don’t know. Perhaps not — but — still I don’t think she feels —”
At this he lighted a cigarette to soothe his excited feelings, and there was silence for some time. Then the girls came down. We could hear their light chatter. Lettie entered the room. He jumped up and surveyed her. She was dressed in soft, creamy, silken stuff; her neck was quite bare; her hair was, as Marie promised, fascinating; she was laughing nervously. She grew warm, like a blossom in the sunshine, in the glow of his admiration. He went forward and kissed her.
“You are splendid!” he said.
She only laughed for answer. He drew her away to the great arm-chair, and made her sit in it beside him. She was indulgent and he radiant. He took her hand and looked at it, and at his ring which she wore.
“It looks all right!” he murmured.
“Anything would,” she replied.
“What do you mean — sapphires and diamonds — for I don’t know?”
“Nor do I. Blue for hope, because Speranza in ‘Fairy