"Diamonds!" ejaculated Rachel.
"Yes; those diamonds you talked about the other night, don't you know?—that you would have if you were very rich. Well, you are going to be very rich. And I am going to order you some of them to-morrow. You must give me the size of your finger. A 'ring full of diamonds,' didn't you say? How full?"
Rachel smiled, blushed, and ceased to feel that strong repugnance to the amenities of courtship which had distressed both herself and her lover at an earlier stage.
Here a servant came in to light the gas. The man appeared conscious of the inopportuneness of his intrusion, and despatched his business in nervous haste, clinking the pendants of the cut-glass chandelier in a manner that his mistress would have highly disapproved of.
Rachel and her visitor watched him with a sort of silent fascination, as if they had never seen gas lighted before. When he was gone, Mr. Kingston took out his watch. It was past six o'clock. He had a dinner engagement at seven, and had to get into town and change his clothes.
"I'm afraid I dare not wait for Mrs. Hardy," he said, rising. "I hate to go, but you know I would not if I could help it. I will see your uncle at his office the first thing in the morning, and come to lunch afterwards. Shall I?"
"If you like," murmured Rachel, shyly. And then she submitted to be kissed again, and being asked to do it, touched her lover's fierce moustaches with her own soft lips—not "minding" it nearly so much as she did at first. She was beginning to get used to being engaged to him.
When immediately after his departure Mrs. Hardy, having left her daughter at her own house, came home, and heard what had been taking place, she could hardly believe the evidence of her ears.
"So soon!" she ejaculated, lifting her hands. "Is it credible? My dear, are you sure you are not making a mistake?"
Remembering the wear and tear of mind and body that the management of these affairs had cost her hitherto—remembering the illusive and unsubstantial nature of all Mr. Kingston's previous attentions to the most attractive marriageable girls—she found the suddenness of the thing confounding.