"Bad! It was the most enchanting thing I ever listened to!—in fact, faultless,—if one omits the fact that you looked as if you were in torment all the time, and seemed utterly hopeless as to what you were going to say next."
"James, is breakfast ready?" says Mr. Peyton, turning away to hide a smile, and making a strenuous effort to suppress the fact that he has heard one word of her last betrayal. "Come into the dining-room, Dorian," he says, when the man has assured him breakfast will be ready in two minutes: "it is ever so much more comfortable there."
Branscombe goes with him, and so presently, Clarissa and Horace find themselves alone.
Horace, going up to her, as in duty bound, places his arm round her, and presses his lips lightly, gently, to her cheek.
"You never wished me a happy Christmas," he says, in the low soft tone he always adopts when speaking to women. "You gave all your best wishes to Dorian."
"You knew what was in my heart," replies she, sweetly, pleased that he has noticed the omission.
"I wonder if I have brought you what you like," he says, laying in her little palm a large gold locket, oval-shaped, and with forget-me-nots in sapphires and diamonds, on one side. Touching a spring, it opens, and there, staring up at her, is his own face, wearing its kindliest expression, and seeming—to her—to breathe forth love and truth.
For a little minute she is silent; then she says softly, with lowered eyes, and a warm, tender blush,—
"Did you have this picture taken for me, alone?"
It is evident the face in the locket is even dearer to her than the locket itself.