" Isabel was betrayed
into an involuntary and fleeting smile. "Hallo! what's this?"

"Oh, Captain Hyde--"

"Go on."

"No: it's the tiniest trifle, and besides I've no right."

"Ask me anything you like, I give you the right."

Isabel blushed. "You must be descended from Jephthah!-- O! dear,
I didn't mean that!"

"Never mind," said Lawrence, unable to help laughing. "My
feelings are not sensitive. But do finish--you fill me with
curiosity. What shibboleth do I fail in?"

Faithful are the wounds of a friend. "Englishmen don't wear
jewellery," murmured Isabel apologetic.

"Sac a papier!" said Lawrence. "My rings?"

He stretched out his hand, a characteristic hand, strong and
flexible, but soft from idleness and white from Gaston's daily
attentions: a diamond richly set in a cluster of diamonds and
emeralds sparkled on the second finger, and a royal turquoise
from Iran, an immense stone the colour of the Mediterranean in
April, on the third. "Does Val object to them? Certainly Val
is very English. My pocket editions of beauty! That diamond was
presented by one of the Rothschilds in gratitude for the help old
Hyde-and-seek gave him in getting together his collection of
early English watercolours: as for the other, it never ought to
have left the Persian treasury, and there'd have been trouble in
the royal house if my father had worn it at the Court. Have you
ever seen such a blue? On a dull railway journey I can sit and
watch those stones by the hour together. But Val would rather
read the Daily Mail"

"Every one laughs at them: Jack and Lord Grantchester, and even
Jimmy."

"And you?" said Lawrence, taking off the rings:--not visibly
nettled, but a trifle regretful.

Isabel knit her brows. "Can a thing be very beautiful and
historic, and yet not in good taste?-- It can if it's out of
harmony: that's what the Greeks never forgot. Men ought not to
look effeminate-- Oh! O Captain Hyde, don't!"

Lawrence, standing up, had with one powerful smooth drive of the
arm sent both rings skimming over the borders, under the apple
trees, over the garden wall, to scatter and drop on the open
moor. "And here comes Mrs. Clowes, so now I shall learn my fate.
I thought Val would not leave us long together.-- Well, Val, what
is it to be? May the young lady come?"

Isabel also sprang up, changing from woman to child as Lawrence
changed from deference to patronage. Their manner to each other
when alon