en dummy
fell to her turn, she had a trick of stretching out her right hand, and
softly tapping the table, during a moment's deliberation, which gave the
onlookers an opportunity of admiring what is certainly one of the most
beautiful of created objects, an exquisitely made, exquisitely tended,
woman's hand. There was but one ring on the hand, a square-cut emerald,
surrounded by diamonds, and the milky whiteness of the skin, the flash
of the emerald against the dull green of the baize, were charming things
to behold. Peignton sent a keen glance of enquiry into Cassandra's
face, and felt relieved to behold its absorption. She was thinking
entirely of the game; the beauty of her hand was to her an accepted
fact; the gesture was actuated by no promptings of vanity. A few
minutes later when Teresa imitated the gesture, as she had fallen into
the habit of imitating Cassandra in a dozen small ways, Peignton stared
assiduously at his cards, but there was an extra empressment in the
voice in which he congratulated the girl at the end of the game. He
felt the same tender commiseration which a parent knows at the sight of
a blemish on a child. Rough luck on a girl to have such ugly hands!
Subconsciously his mind registered a vow never to give her emeralds.

During a term of service abroad Peignton had met few women, and those of
an uncongenial type, but now he wished to marry, and for some time past
had been consciously regarding every girl he met in the light of a
future wife. He was not romantic in his requirements--few men are, when
they deliberately set about such a search. He wanted a wife because he
was thirty-five, and not too strong, and if he ever settled down it was
time he did it, and a fellow felt lonely having no one to think of but
himself. He wanted a girl about twenty-five--not younger than that,--
healthy and cheerful, and fond of a country life, and, after eight
months' residence in Chumley, it appeared to him that Teresa Mallison
filled the bill. She was the prettiest and most sporting girl in the
neighbourhood; he met her on one excuse or another several times a week,
and considered complacently that he was falling in love. Teresa did not
consider at all,--she would have been hanged and quartered for him at
any moment of any day; she was prepared to do, what is far more
difficult--marry him on a minute income, keep house with insufficient
help, and rear a large family. Teresa's tastes were modern, b