"He would have given me rings," she says.
It is so childish, so absurd, that Rylton wonders why he doesn't want to laugh. But the little sad face, with the gray eyes filled with tears, checks any mirth he might have felt. A sudden longing to give her another ring, when next he goes to town, fills his heart.
"Well! what about our guests?"
Her tone startles him. He looks up. All the tears, the grief are gone; she is the gay, laughing Tita that he thinks he knows.
"Well, what?" His tone is a little cold. She is superficial, certainly. "If you decline to ask your friends——"
"I don't decline. It is only that I have no friends," declares she.
There is something too deliberate in her manner to be quite natural, and Rylton looks at her. She returns his glance with something of mockery in hers.
"It isn't nice to be married to a mere nobody, is it?" says she, showing her pretty teeth in a rather malicious little laugh.
"I suppose not," says Rylton steadily. "I haven't tried it."
A gleam—a tiny gleam of pleasure comes into her eyes, bus she wilfully repulses it.