“Earrings! I didn’t know you had any! Where did you get them? Who gave them to you?”
For one moment the girl fenced with him, trying to treat the matter lightly, as she got upon a chair and placed the work-basket at the top of the high cupboard by the fireplace. But George Claris was not a man to be trifled with. Seizing the girl by the shoulder so roughly that he almost dragged her to the ground, he tore the work-basket out of her hands, flung back the lid, and turned out the contents upon the table, the chairs, anywhere, until he had found both the earrings.
Then he held them up to the light critically; then he looked at Nell with a puzzled frown.
“Who gave ’em to you?” he asked, sharply.
The young men, trying to hide their interest in her answer by talking among themselves, yet listened eagerly. She blushed, stammered, then turned white as she said:
“The colonel gave them to me—Colonel Bostal. At least, he and Miss Theodora.”
George Claris rubbed one of the earrings on his sleeve, and then rather quickly thrust them both out of sight under a little pile of old papers and magazines which had been replaced upon the side-table.
“Well, I don’t know what folks want spending money on jew’lry for, when you can get just as good to look at for next to nothing. And next to nothing must be the vally of anything as Miss Theodora gives away,” he added, with a rather forced attempt at jocularity.
Clifford, who was much perturbed by this incident, on account of the construction his two friends were sure to put upon it, made haste to turn the talk into another channel. He knew that he had not heard the last of it. And he was not surprised to see Otto, at a later period of the evening, when the rest were in the garden, draw the earrings from the place where they had been put, and examine them carefully by the light of the lamp.
While Clifford lingered behind for a few last words with Nell, the other two, having taken their leave, walked on together.