“About that—engagement ring, Mr. Waters——”

“Yes?”

“You want me to take to wearing it, as soon as you have got it, I suppose?”

“That’s the idea,” he said, turning a little to look at me while I stared straight at the big white-and-blue buses lumbering up the Strand, but saw, clearer than the traffic, the faces of Miss Robinson, Miss Holt, and Smithie wearing that partly contemptuous, but more angry, expression with which I suppose a decent Trades-Unionist on strike might be entitled to look down upon a blackleg. “Yes, of course it’s for you to wear at once. What else?”

“And—to show the others?”

“Of course!” He looked still more surprised; a little impatient, too. I suppose he felt that again an irritating spoke was being thrust into the well-oiled wheel of his plan.

“I am to show it to them and let them know, in that way, that I am supposed to be engaged to you?”

He answered this with another question.

“Tell me, Miss Trant, have you been having any unpleasantness in the office about this—coming out to lunch with me?”

“N-no,” I said. “Of course,” I added more quickly, “it’s been awkward! You could not expect it not to have been awkward—at least, for me!”

“Ah? Made awkward for you by those girls—what?”

“No! Oh, no!” I fibbed swiftly. For again I could conclude his comment with that relentless “Well, then, they can go!” And I couldn’t have the girls sacked, calmly as I felt I could have seen them all three strangled an hour before. “Only—a little difficult to explain.”

“This will explain it,” said my employer coolly, as the taxi stopped outside the glass door of the great jeweller’s. A page-boy in green-and-silver swung it open for us. And Mr. Waters made me precede him into the softly-carpeted shop with the long glass counters and the white velvet stands curved to the shape of a woman’s neck, on which winked and flashed, gleamed and glowed, diamonds—rubies—pearls—jewels of every description.

“The sight of flowers soothes and softens a woman’s mood. Jewels, on the other hand, stimulate, excite and irritate her. Possibly because they generally signify longings unattainable combined with the knowledge that, given that necklace, or gems like those, or such a pair of ear-rings, and any beauty she has would be tenfold increased.” ... That is how Sydney Vandeleur explained it to me. He’s interested in jewels ever since he won that Arts and Crafts competition for the design of a girdle in silver, mother-o’-pearl, and peridot. And Cicely, of the red curls, once confessed that she would marry an octogenarian if he could give her a really lovely rope of black pearls!

But that was in fun. This was business....

A small, olive-faced shopman in a frock-coat and with curls like a retriever’s back bowed over the counter and flashed his teeth at us. Mentally I nicknamed him Mr. Levi Smarm. It would have taken all Miss Robinson’s powers of mimicry to reproduce the suavity of his “Sir? What may I have the pleasure?”

“We want to see some rings,” said my employer brusquely.

“Engagement rings, sir, of course?”

“Yes, of course,” said Mr. Waters, fixing a cold granite-grey stare just above the retriever’s back—or rather, the jeweller’s head. “Now—”

I felt that he had nearly rapped out his usual “Now, Miss Trant!” but checked himself under the sympathetically intrusive eye of that Jewish salesman as he turned to me—“what stones do you prefer?”

“I? Oh! What does it matter?—I mean, I don’t mind in the least!”

I was remembering things that various girl-friends had told me, in the old days, of the choosing of their engagement rings; of various rings I had seen. One girl, whose fiancÉ had gipsy blood in his veins, had chosen a gipsy’s silver wedding-ring. Another had a tiny enamel circlet with the posy:

If I were the falling-in-love type of girl, which thank goodness I’m not, this scene at Gemmer’s, so utterly opposed to all canons of Romance and tradition, might have seemed a “desecration”—might have got thoroughly on my nerves.

But what was on my nerves, which actually were jangled enough for the moment, was—first, the attitude of the girls towards me ever since I came back from the Carlton yesterday—and, secondly, the Governor’s blind tactlessness, his intention of turning me loose among them, so to speak, alone, to flaunt his ring on my finger!

A positive rage against Still Waters boiled up in me as suddenly as hot milk in the saucepan when you don’t watch it. So, when he suggested, casually, “Let us say diamonds, then, shall we?” I heard myself retort quickly, almost before I knew what I meant:

“Yes, diamonds. Diamonds are always money afterwards, you know!”

As soon as it was out of my mouth I realized that it was an appalling thing to say under any circumstances. Mr. Levi Smarm, however, seemed to consider it an extremely witty remark.

He threw back his curly head and laughed quite pleasantly as he suggested that surely the young lady was not thinking of an “afterwards” already?

“It is always well to be provided for every contingency,” put in Mr. Waters dryly. “I should like to see those diamond rings in that show-case over there, please.”

“There” was at the other end of the shop—which meant that our salesman had to turn his frock-coated back upon us, and that he was out of earshot of the next remarks between his “newly-engaged” customers.

“Miss Trant!”—the Governor spoke curtly and hurriedly—“What was your meaning just now when you said that ‘diamonds were always money afterwards’?”

“Well—I—I understood that they were! Perhaps I ought not to have said it with the man there. I meant that you would not lose anything on it when I return that ring to you in a year’s time from now!”

“Who said anything about ‘returning’ the ring when the so-called engagement is up?” asked Mr. Waters, looking directly at me.

I was aghast.

“But ... naturally I send it back!”

“I had not intended that at all. You will have ... expenses connected with this affair—railway-journeys, and so on, I mean.” He meant clothes again, I suspect, but could not say so. “I intended whatever value the ring might have to stand for those.”

“Thank you,” I said, nearly boiling up again. “In that case I won’t have diamonds, please.”

“This is a very pretty design, madam,” insinuated the returning Mr. Smarm. “The colour of these stones is very beautiful.”

“Yes, but I don’t think I’m going to have diamonds,” I persisted, feeling quite amazed at my own boldness. I meant, however, to carry my point. “I’d rather have pearls—or opals——”

“Very seldom a young lady chooses opals for her engagement ring,” smiled the shopman. “That superstition against opals loses our firm thousands of pounds’ business a year; the majority of ladies considering them so unlucky.”

“I am not superstitious,” I said. “I would like—I am going to have an opal ring, with very small stones in it.”

“We are going to have diamonds,” remarked my employer quietly. “Fetch me some other diamond rings to look at.”

“I would rather not have them,” I urged, in the temporary absence of the black curls and white teeth.

“And I would rather that you had,” ordered my employer. “After all, diamonds are the show-stones; everybody notices them. They look so unmistakably like an engagement, don’t you see?”

“Yes—I see,” I said reluctantly, my nerves feeling more jangled than ever. “But, Mr. Waters, if I must have them, I shall insist upon sending back that ring when——”

“When the time comes we can discuss that,” the Governor cut me short just as Mr. Levi Smarm bent over us with his wave-offering of jewels on a tray. “Yes. That’s a good one, that big fellow with the stones going nearly all round. Those seem a fine colour.”

“A perfect colour, sir; perfectly matched. I am sure that you will——”

“Try it on,” said Mr. Waters, holding the winking, flashing circlet out to me.

I pulled off my left-hand glove, but here the suave shopman, evidently accustomed to shopping couples who showed more appreciation of his sympathy and understanding, interposed again.

“Oh, pardon me, sir, but that will never do. That would be most incorrect! No young lady would keep on an engagement ring that had not been first slipped on to her finger by her fiancÉ himself!”

Mr. Waters’ glance of contempt at the shopman would have shrivelled up the entire staff at the Near Oriental. But several little things had shown me already that the man who is a Grand Mogul in his own offices can go down several degrees in importance when he leaves the City. Mr. Levi Smarm met that glance with another flashing smile, and evidently waited for us to take this last hint on bridal or betrothal etiquette as it was meant.

I believe Mr. Waters was going to do so. A slight shrug of his broad, sloping shoulders seemed to say, “We may as well have everything en rÈgle while we’re about it,” as he turned to me. But I wasn’t going to have any masquerading “frills” about this business that could possibly be avoided, and this particular development in our “romance” was avoidable. I said very quickly and decidedly, “Oh, but I don’t believe in anything of that sort, you know.” Then quietly I took the ring, before he knew what I was about, out of my employer’s hand, and slipped it on to my own “wedding-finger.”

There was a faint purple smudge off a new ribbon on my knuckle just above the ring. I couldn’t help thinking how entirely characteristic of the whole affair this was: the stain of my daily labour, showing side by side with these wonderful stones—that must also be worn as part of the gaining of my daily bread.

The ring fitted as if measured for me.

“You wish me to keep this?” I said briskly to the Governor.

“Yes, I think that one will do perfectly,” he replied; and he turned to the young jeweller again.

It was to ask the price, I knew. I was seized with that ineradicable feeling of distress that claims a woman under any circumstances whatsoever—when mention is made of payment for her, by another. She loves to be paid for—with all thought of price ignored. So I rose and turned to bend over another glass counter under which gleamed pendants of pearls and emeralds—which I scarcely saw, for another couple had strayed into the shop—a plainish girl, simply and rather dowdily dressed; a man like dozens of others—and they interested me. Their two faces were as radiant as if they had come into a fortune sufficient to buy up the whole of Gemmer’s six times over, but I heard the girl whisper, awe-struck and ecstatic, “Oh, Harry, no! I won’t let you! It’s absurd, for people like us.” ...

“People like us aren’t going to be married every day! Considering I nearly wrecked my constitution and made myself unspeakably ill-tempered by giving up smoking for eight months,” growled the young man, “just to save up enough to be absurd, you won’t catch me wasting it on being sensible.”

“I’ll write you out the cheque now, and wait while you ring up my bank, then,” the Governor’s voice was saying; then came purrs from Mr. Levi Smarm, of “Shall not detain you a moment, sir ... Thank you, sir; perfectly all right. Much obliged. Good afternoon, sir” (with a bend to the waist). “Good afternoon, madam” (with an even lower bend). Then he turned the eyes and teeth and curls on the young couple who had saved up to be “absurd.” I wondered whether he would notice the difference between them and—his last customers. Probably. Ah, but he could hardly be expected to know quite what it was!

“I hope,” said Mr. Waters, civilly, on our way back to the office, “that that little Hebrew bounder didn’t annoy you. That sort of thing is all part of his business, you understand.”

“Of course I understand,” said I submissively.

“I am glad you—didn’t mind it,” said Mr. Waters.

I longed to be able to retort, “Mind? Why on earth should I? Please try to understand that there’s no reason I need ‘mind,’ any more than one of those curved white velvet stands at Gemmer’s should mind whose hand clasps and unclasps the necklace of amethysts and peridots that it displays. I’m quite content to let my finger be a ‘stand,’ to show off these diamonds, for which—for some unexplained reason—you’ve got to pay someone to be the ‘official’ wearer! All I ‘mind’ is the way you do these things—it’s clumsy beyond belief!”

One comfort that remains to me is that I need only wear this hateful ring of his while I am on show—and not at other times.

No tightly-corseted Victorian has ever so longed to be alone in her bedroom again and undo her torturing case of whalebone and coutil as I shall long to get away, every time I’m wearing this “engagement” ring—to the mere pleasure of taking it off!