"I'm greatly tempted to accept it, do you know!" she said.
He laughed.
"Don't: you'll be vanquished. Is that too candid, too—brutal?" he said.
"So brutal that I will accept it," she said. "Is that ring of yours a favorite?"
"I've had it ever since I can remember. It was my mother's," he said, rather gravely.
She held out her hand, upon which the costly gems glittered in the sunlight.
"Choose one to set against it," she said quite quietly.
Howard, roused for once from his sleepy cynicism, met her gaze with something like astonishment.
"You mean—?" he said, in a low voice.
"I mean that I am going to try to meet your iceberg. You will play fair, Mr. Howard? You will stand and look on and—be silent?"