This evening was to mark the end of the feeble pretence, anyway. Lionel came for her a little early, and Miss Eppendorfer undertook to entertain him until Frankie was ready. She heard them talking gaily together, in their usual vein of preposterous flirtation. She surmised the customary brandy and soda, and she felt her invariable shade of annoyance at their camaraderie. If Lionel would only be—not condescending of course, but—oh, a little more——
An unusually loud shriek from the authoress startled her.
“Oh, you extravagant boy! What a beauty! What a perfect beauty!”
She hurried a bit then, and entered the room, looking her very best and loveliest, dignified, concealing her curiosity. They were on the sofa side by side, a little table before them holding the siphon and the brandy bottle, their heads together over something in the authoress’s hand. Directly she saw Frankie, she thrust the thing back at Lionel.
“You must show it to her!” she cried, in great excitement.
Lionel extended his hand, proffered her her ring——
It was the conventional single diamond, set in platinum, a stone so pure and beautiful and of such a size that Frances almost gasped. Her face showed no pleasure at first, nothing but blank dismay. She barely stopped herself in time from saying:
“But oh, how terribly expensive!”
He put it on her finger, and she smiled in duty bound. But secretly it terrified her. It was so much too splendid. Perhaps she had a premonition that it was an unlucky ring——
Lionel was disappointed. He looked into Frankie’s face as they sat in the taxi, and waited for her to praise it.