"Thank you for the wishes as well as for bringing back my ring," said Elinor. "And—you must, of course, allow me to recompense your kindness. A souvenir of it, and of my daughter, for your children's Christmas——"
As she spoke, she took from her gold-chain bag a fat bundle of notes and quickly selected one for five hundred francs. The ring was worth this sum many times over, but it seemed to her that a hundred dollars was not an ungenerous present. If the man were really poor—and honest—he ought to be well satisfied. She watched his face as, with a smile, she held out the French note.
He flushed so deeply that the scar on his forehead turned purple.
"It isn't as much as he expected!" thought Elinor. She waited, however, for him to speak. 48
"Oh, Madame, I thank you!" he stammered. "But I could not possibly accept a reward. I am only too glad to have found the ring."
He seemed actually to be going, to be hurrying away in order to escape persuasion; yet Elinor, in her experience, realized that the move might be meant only to draw her on. She was almost sure that the man would pause at the door, but rather than see him thus humiliated (because she couldn't help liking his face) she persisted. "You surely must take the money, or I shall be hurt."
The face, which she liked, grew a shade redder, and then became suddenly paler than before. "Please do not say that, Madame," he pleaded, "because it would be—it would be a thing I could not do, to take money for returning to a lady her lost property. It would make me worse than a beggar."
A little, tingling thrill shot through Elinor's veins. She felt ashamed, for this outburst was genuine. Not even a cynic could 49 mistake it, and she hated herself because she was a cynic. Still, she would not give up her point—less than ever would she give it up; for now she began earnestly to want the man to have her money.
"You shouldn't feel like that," she argued. "You didn't ask me for anything. I give of my own free will. You see, I wish to be even with you. You've done me a kindness. Let me repay it."
It seemed to her that Paul Valois looked at her almost pityingly. "Madame," he said, "will you not grant a man the happiness of giving, not of selling, the one thing in his power, on the eve of Christmas? It has made me happy that through us, in a way, you have been saved from pain at this time when the world should be glad. To pay me for that joy would kill it."