“Beautiful after—I mean morning.”
“It is indeed,” said Severance. “I wonder you are not taking your salt-water constitutional.”
“I always take a walk in the morning;” and Teddy glanced nervously over his shoulder.
Boswell and Trent, each with a little missive burning his pocket, turned red, fidgeted, glared at the ocean, and made no remark. Severance darted a glance at each of the three in succession, and then looked at the ground with a contemplative stare. At this moment Mrs. Pendleton appeared.
Three of the men advanced to meet her with an awkward attempt at surprise, but she waved them back.
“I have something to say to you,” she said.
The cold languor of her face had given place to an expression of haughty triumph. A gleam of conscious power lay deep in her scornful eyes. The final act in the drama had come, and the dénouement should be worthy of her talents. She looked like a judge who had smiled encouragement to a guilty defendant only to confer the sentence of capital punishment at last.
“Gentlemen,” she said, and even her voice was judicatorial, “I have asked you all to meet me here this morning”—(three angry starts, but she went on unmoved)—“because I came to the conclusion last night that it is quite time this farce should end. I am somewhat bored myself, and I have no doubt you are so, as well. Your joke was a clever one, worthy of the idle days of autumn. When I received your four proposals by the same mail, I appreciated your wit—I will say more, your genius—and felt glad to do anything I could to contribute to your amusement, especially as all the world is away and I knew how dull you must be. So I accepted each of you, as you know, had four charming interviews and one memorable one of a more composite nature; and now that we have all agreed that the spicy and original little drama has run its length I take pleasure in restoring your rings.”
She took from her handkerchief a beautiful little casket of blue onyx, upon which reposed the Pendleton crest in diamonds, touched a spring, and revealed four rings sparkling about as many velvet cushions. The four men stood speechless; not one dared protest his sincerity and see ridicule in the eyes of his neighbour.
Mrs. Pendleton dropped her judicial air, and taking the ruby between her fingers, smiled like a teacher bestowing a prize.