"So I am listening--to you," Harriet replied, with an attempt at a smile. "So I do hear your adventures. There's nobody up in the house but myself. Pray go on."
So George went on, and told her all that had befallen him at Amherst, with one important reservation; he said nothing of Clare Carruthers or his two meetings with the heiress at the Sycamores; but he told her all about his interview with his mother, and the expedient to which she had resorted to supply his wants. Harriet Routh listened to his story intently; but when she heard that he had received from Mrs. Carruthers, not money, but jewels, she was evidently disconcerted.
"Here is the bracelet," said George, as he took the little packet from the breast-pocket of his coat, and handed it to her. "I don't know much about such things, Mrs. Routh, but perhaps you do. Are the diamonds very valuable?"
Harriet had opened the morocco case containing the bracelet while he was speaking, and now she lifted the beautiful ornament from its satin bed, and held it on her open palm.
"I am not a very capable judge," she said; "but I think these are fine and valuable diamonds. They are extremely beautiful." And a gleam of colour came into her white face as she looked at the gems with a woman's irrepressible admiration of such things.
"I can't tell you how much I feel taking them from her," said George. "It's like a robbery, isn't it?" And he looked full and earnestly at Harriet.
She started, let the bracelet fall, stooped to pick it up, and as she raised her face again, it was whiter than before.
"How can you talk such nonsense?" she said, with a sudden resumption of her usual captivating manner. "Of course it isn't. Do you suppose your mother ever had as much pleasure in these gewgaws in her life as she had in giving them to you? Besides, you know you're going to reform and be steady, and take good advice, are you not?" She watched him very keenly, though her tone was gay and trifling. George reddened, laughed awkwardly, and replied:
"Well, I hope so; and the first step, you know, is to pay my debts. So I must get Routh to put me in the way of selling this bracelet at once. I suppose there's no difficulty about it. I'm sure I have heard it said that diamonds are the same as ready money, and the sooner the tin is in Routh's pocket the better pleased I'll be. None the less obliged to him, though, Mrs. Routh; remember that, both for getting me out of the scrape, and for waiting so long and so good-humouredly for his money."
For all the cordiality of his tone, for all the gratitude he expressed, Harriet felt in her inmost heart, and told herself she felt that he was a changed man; that he felt his freedom, rejoiced in it, and did not mean again to relinquish or endanger it.