She shook her hand; and the ring dropped from it—fell and bounded on the carpet.
“It is too big for me,” she said piteously.
He stood transfixed a moment; then forgot his dignity so far as to dive and recover the desecrated trinket.
“God in heaven!” he began; then checked himself and choked down his fury. “A defect soon remedied,” he said, his voice quite hoarse.
“But not my unfitness to wear it,” she answered. “O, father, have pity on me!”
He went off like a madman, flinging back and forth the length of the room, and ended by stopping suddenly, his fists raised and clinched, to apostrophise space:
“That our dearest hopes should have come to be realised—and for this! That we should have devoted our love, our diplomacy, our peace of mind to the welfare of this monster of inconsistency and ingratitude!”
She cried out: “O, no, no! O, lord and father, not either!”
He came round, actually grinding his teeth:
“I foresaw this. I read indifference and rebellion in your reception of his Highness’s plenipotentiary. But I tell you that your protests will be of no avail; that we refuse to listen for an instant to any one of the fancied scruples which would deprive us, in the very fruition of our hopes, of the reward of so much disinterested self-sacrifice.”