"I promise. Marylin, one more. One little more. Your lips—"
"No, no—not now. Go—"
Suddenly, by a quirk in the dark, there was a flash of something down Marylin's bare third finger, so hurriedly and so rashly that it scraped the flesh.
"That's for you! I've been afraid all day. Touchy! Didn't I tell you?
Diamonds! Now will you kiss me? Now will you?"
In the shadow of where she stood, looking down, it was as if she gazed into a pool of fire that was reaching in flame clear up about her head, and everywhere in the conflagration Getaway's triumphant "Now will you! Now will you!"
"Getaway," she cried, flecking her hand as if it burned, "where did you get this?"
"It's for you, Fairylin, and more like it coming. It weighs a carat and a half. That stone's worth more than a sealskin jacket. You're going to have one of those, too. Real seal! Now are you sore at me any more? Now you've a swell kick coming, haven't you? Now! Now!"
"Getaway," she cried behind her lit hand, because her palm was to her mouth and above it her eyes showing the terror in their whites, "where did you get this?"
"There!" he said, and kissed her hotly and squarely on the lips.
Somehow, with the ring off her finger and in a little pool of its light as it lay at his feet, where he stood dazed on the sidewalk, Marylin was up the stoop, through the door, up two flights, and through her own door, slamming it, locking it, and into her room, rubbing and half crying over her left third finger where the flash had been.