“So I think,” Will answered, looking her frankly in the face. “She needs teaching, of course—the very best teaching. But if only she gets it, I see no reason to doubt she might do what she likes with it.”
“And she’s beautiful, too,” Rue went on, without one marring touch of any feminine but. “How queenly she’d look as a Mary Stuart or a Cleopatra! Your necklet suits her well.” She paused, and reflected a second. “It’s a pity,” she went on, musingly, as if half to herself, “she shouldn’t have the brooch and the earrings to match it!”
And next day, sure enough, at the Golden Eagle, about one o’clock, when Linnet went up to her own room after early dinner, she found on her dressing-table a small cardboard box containing some coral ornaments to go with the necklet, and this little inscription in a feminine hand inside it:—“For Linnet, from one who admired last night her beautiful singing.”
Then Linnet knew at least that the fair-haired lady too had a great heart, and owed her no grudge for the possession of Will Deverill’s necklet. For she divined by pure instinct what admirer had sent them.
CHAPTER XIV
AND IF FOR EVER
“It’s no use wasting words,” Florian observed, with decision. “As our old friend Homer justly remarks, ‘Great is the power of words; wing’d words may make this way or that way.’ I’m a practical man myself: I stick close to the facts; they’re solid; they’re tangible; they’re not to be evaded. I won’t allow myself to be argued out of a reasonable conviction. I put it like this: if it was right for you, as you admitted, to leave St Valentin, then, by parity of reasoning, it’s right for you now to leave Innsbruck instantly. Mill, Whately, and Jevons would allow that that’s logic. Why did we come here? Partly, no doubt, to instruct ourselves in the contents of this most interesting town; but mainly, I submit, to deliver you forthwith from your milkmaid’s clutches. Why should we go away again? Partly because we’ve seen all that Innsbruck contains of historical or artistic; but largely, also, because the milkmaid insists upon pursuing us through the land and jingling her bells till she compels us to listen to her.”
“She didn’t know we were here,” Will interjected, bristling up.
“She didn’t know we were here, that’s true; but she’s followed us all the same, cow-bells and pails and all, and we must break away at once from her. I’ve said so to Rue, and Rue fully agrees with me. As I told you before, if you mean the girl harm,—well and good; I don’t meddle with you. But if you mean to go on shilly-shallying like this,—saying goodbye for ever—and sending her coral necklets; meeting her again at hotels—and applauding her rapturously; saying goodbye once more—and letting it run, for aught I know to the contrary, to diamonds and rubies—why, what I say is this, I’ve seen the same thing tried on more than once before, and my experience is, the man who begins by meaning only to flirt with a girl, sinks down, down, down, by gradual degrees, till at last he loses every relic of self-respect—and ends by marrying her!”