"Emily,"—as wheels rattled up the avenue,—"is that the fishmonger's cart?"
"No," answered Emily at the window; "it is the butcher."
"His attitude toward the women here has made my joy," Lady Maria proceeded, smiling over the deep-sea fishermen's knitted helmet she had taken up. "He behaves beautifully to them all, but not one of them has really a leg to stand on as far as he is responsible for it. But I will tell you something, Emily." She paused.
Miss Fox-Seton waited with interested eyes.
"He is thinking of bringing the thing to an end and marrying some woman. I feel it in my bones."
"Do you think so?" exclaimed Emily. "Oh, I can't help hoping—" But she paused also.
"You hope it will be Agatha Slade," Lady Maria ended for her. "Well, perhaps it will be. I sometimes think it is Agatha, if it's any one. And yet I'm not sure. One never could be sure with Walderhurst. He has always had a trick of keeping more than his mouth shut. I wonder if he could have any other woman up his sleeve?"
"Why do you think—" began Emily.
Lady Maria laughed.
"For an odd reason. The Walderhursts have a ridiculously splendid ring in the family, which they have a way of giving to the women they become engaged to. It's ridiculous because—well, because a ruby as big as a trouser's button is ridiculous. You can't get over that. There is a story connected with this one—centuries and things, and something about the woman the first Walderhurst had it made for. She was a Dame Something or Other who had snubbed the King for being forward, and the snubbing was so good for him that he thought she was a saint and gave the ruby for her betrothal. Well, by the merest accident I found Walderhurst had sent his man to town for it. It came two days ago."