"How nice you look, Celia!" Lulu exclaimed with honest admiration in her tones. "Your eyes are shining like stars, and there's such a lovely pink colour in your cheeks. How I wish I was as pretty as you!"
Celia laughed—a flattered laugh it was—and said: "Oh, nonsense!" but she was really very pleased.
"Your dress is simply sweet," Lulu continued critically, "and, oh, Celia, what a beautiful brooch!"
"Yes, isn't it?" Celia returned, her colour deepening. She had fastened her frock at the throat with the butterfly brooch, and the jewel with its sparkling diamonds was handsome and striking enough to attract attention at once. "I'm glad you like it," she added.
"Like it! Why, I think it's one of the prettiest I ever saw," Lulu cried, enthusiastically. "How is it I never saw it before? Is it new? Have you had it long?"
"No—that is—yes. I have had it since the night before I came here," Celia answered, rather confusedly.
"Oh, I suppose Sir Jasper Amery gave it to you?"
"Yes."
Celia turned her back upon her friend, and pretended to be searching in a drawer for her gloves, for she was conscious that her face was crimson. Lulu, however, was thinking of the brooch, and not of its wearer; she seemed quite excited.
"Why, Celia, the stones must be real diamonds!" she exclaimed. "I thought, at first, they were only paste; but if Sir Jasper gave you the brooch, you may depend upon it the stones are real."