“You did, Anne, you certainly did; you are a charming woman, and as clever as you are charming.”
“Compliments are all very well, and I am sure I appreciate yours”—and she gave a little curtsey—“at their proper value; but I must remind you, George, that I have done my part of the bargain, and that now you must do yours.”
“Oh! that’s all right; Bellamy shall have the agency and two hundred a year with it, and, to show you that I have not forgotten you, perhaps you will accept this in memorial of our joint achievement;” and he drew from his pocket and opened a case containing a superb set of sapphires.
Mrs. Bellamy had all a beautiful woman’s love for jewels, and especially adored sapphires.
“Oh!” she said, clasping her hands, “thank you, George; they are perfectly lovely!”
“Perhaps,” he replied, politely; “but not half so lovely as their wearer. I wonder,” he added, with a little laugh, “what the old boy would say, if he could know that a thousand pounds of his personalty had gone by anticipation to buy a necklace for Anne Bellamy.”
To this remark she made no reply, being apparently absorbed in her own thoughts. At last she spoke.
“I don’t want to seem ungracious, George, but these”—and she touched the jewels—“were not the reward I expected: I want the letters you promised me back.”
“My dear Anne, you are under a mistake, I never promised you the letters; I said that, under the circumstances, I might possibly restore them—a very different thing from promising.”
Mrs. Bellamy flushed a little, and the great pupils of her sleepy eyes contracted till she looked quite dangerous.