Stepping up to the groom, who was driving a handsome bay mare in the neatest of dog-carts, Wallace directed him to follow while he turned back with Laline in the direction of the shops.
"You must choose it yourself," he explained to Laline. "Something very warm in fur."
"What are you thinking of?" she exclaimed. "You cannot for one moment suppose that I would accept valuable presents from a stranger?"
She had stopped in her walk, and he stopped, too, and looked down for a moment into her face, his blue eyes shining with a soft light, the sight of which brought sudden blushes to her cheek.
"I had forgotten," he said. "There is something else we must buy first."
In an instant she knew what he meant. Had she not been through the same experience with him before, years ago? She could almost have laughed aloud as he hurried her into a jeweller's shop, and they stood together before the counter while Wallace asked again, as he had done in Boulogne, to be shown some engagement-rings, "to fit this lady's finger."
The man's half-smile was just the same as it had been years ago. Surely some faint recollection of that former scene would come back to Wallace now, as he stood by her side and gently drew off her glove, just as he had done before, to try the rings!
"Which one do you like best?" he asked; and, breaking into a hysterical laugh, Laline declared that she must have "a turquoise heart surrounded by small diamonds."
"The price will be one hundred francs," she said, and almost expected that Wallace would at once proceed to purchase, as before, the wedding-ring as well.