"Or him; and it is in that feeling that I find my chief satisfaction,—that he should have had the sense to have liked such a one as you better than others. Now I have said it. As not being one of us I did at first object to his choice. As being what you are yourself, I am altogether reconciled to it. Do not keep him long waiting."
"I do not think he likes to be kept waiting for anything."
"I dare say not. I dare say not. And now there is one thing else." Then the Duke unlocked a little drawer that was close to his hand, and taking out a ring put it on her finger. It was a bar of diamonds, perhaps a dozen of them, fixed in a little circlet of gold. "This must never leave you," he said.
"It never shall,—having come from you."
"It was the first present that I gave to my wife, and it is the first that I give to you. You may imagine how sacred it is to me. On no other hand could it be worn without something which to me would be akin to sacrilege. Now I must not keep you longer or Silverbridge will be storming about the house. He of course will tell me when it is to be; but do not you keep him long waiting." Then he kissed her and led her up into the drawing-room. When he had spoken a word of greeting to Mrs. Boncassen, he left them to their own devices.
After that they spent the best part of an hour in going over the house; but even that was done in a manner unsatisfactory to Silverbridge. Wherever Isabel went, there Mrs. Boncassen went also. There might have been some fun in showing even the back kitchens to his bride-elect, by herself;—but there was none in wandering about those vast underground regions with a stout lady who was really interested with the cooking apparatus and the wash-houses. The bedrooms one after another became tedious to him when Mrs. Boncassen would make communications respecting each of them to her daughter. "That is Gerald's room," said Silverbridge. "You have never seen Gerald. He is such a brick." Mrs. Boncassen was charmed with the whips and sticks and boxing-gloves in Gerald's room, and expressed an opinion that young men in the States mostly carried their knick-knacks about with them to the Universities. When she was told that he had another collection of "knick-knacks" at Matching, and another at Oxford, she thought that he was a very extravagant young man. Isabel, who had heard all about the gambling in Scotland, looked round at her lover and smiled.
"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Boncassen, as they took their leave, "it is a very grand house, and I hope with all my heart you may have your health there and be happy. But I don't know that you'll be any happier because it's so big."
"Wait till you see Gatherum," said Silverbridge. "That, I own, does make me unhappy. It has been calculated that three months at Gatherum Castle would drive a philosopher mad."
In all this there had been a certain amount of disappointment for Silverbridge; but on that evening, before dinner in Brook Street, he received compensation. As the day was one somewhat peculiar in its nature he decided that it should be kept altogether as a holiday, and he did not therefore go down to the House. And not going to the House of course he spent the time with the Boncassens. "You know you ought to go," Isabel said to him when they found themselves alone together in the back drawing-room.
"Of course I ought."