"There's one thing I want to tell you, Maisie, something I'm rather ashamed of."
The lapis lazuli eyes widened in a look of wonder. He might be going to tell her of another girl.
"You know, as I've just said, that when we got engaged I was only sixteen. I didn't know anything about anything. I thought I did, of course; but then all fellows of sixteen think that. I'd never had anyone to teach me, or show me the right hang of things. You saw for yourself how I lived with Honey; and before that, as you know, I'd been a State ward. Further back than that—but I can't talk about it yet. Some day when we're married, and know each other better—"
"I'm not asking you. I don't care."
"No, I know you don't care, and that you're not asking me; but I want you to understand how it was that I was so ignorant, so much more ignorant than I suppose any other fellow would have been. When I went out to buy that ring you've got on—"
He knew by the horror in her face that she divined what he had to tell her. He knew too that she had already been afraid of it.
"You're not going to say that it isn't a real diamond?"
To nerve himself he had to look at her steadily. Confessing a murder would have been easier.
"No, Maisie, it isn't a real diamond. At the time I bought it I didn't know what a real diamond was. I'm not sure that I know now—"