Lord Ashleigh smiled. His hand had disappeared into the pocket of his dinner-coat.
“If you think so now,” he remarked, “I do not know what you will say to me presently. What I am doing now, Ella, I am doing with your mother’s sanction, and you must associate her with the gift which I am going to place in your keeping.”
The hand was slowly withdrawn from his pocket. He laid upon the table a very familiar morocco case, stamped with a coronet. Even before he touched the spring and the top flew open, Ella knew what was coming.
“Our diamonds!” she exclaimed. “The Ashleigh diamonds!”
The necklace lay exposed to view, the wonderful stones flashing in the subdued light. Ella gazed at it, speechless.
“In New York,” Lord Ashleigh continued, “it is the custom to wear jewellery in public more, even, than in this country. The family pearls, which I myself should have thought more suitable, went, as you know, to your elder sister upon her marriage. I am not rich enough to invest large sums of money in the purchase of precious stones, yet, on the other hand, your mother and I feel that if you are to wear jewels at all, we should like you to wear something of historic value, jewels which are associated with the history of your own house. Allow me!”
He leaned forward. With long, capable fingers he fastened the necklace around his daughter’s neck. It fell upon her bosom, sparkling, a little circular stream of fire against the background of her smooth, white skin. Ella could scarcely speak. Her fingers caressed the jewels.
“It is our farewell present to you,” Lord Ashleigh declared. “I need not beg you to take care of them. I do not wish to dwell upon their value. Money means, naturally, little to you, and when I tell you that a firm in London offered me sixty thousand pounds for them for an American client, I only mention it so that you may understand that they are likely to be appreciated in the country to which you are going.”
She clasped his hands.
“Father,” she cried, “you are too good to me! It is all too wonderful. I shall be afraid to wear them.”