Mrs. Nesbit went out, apparently still lost in wonder. Carrie turned to her companion impulsively.
"I should like Charley to see me as I am—for once," she said.
Five minutes later, Eveline Annersly slipped away as Leland came in, dressed in worn and faded jean. He gave a start of astonishment and a look that almost suggested pain when Carrie turned to him. She looked imperial in the long, graceful dress. The diamonds in her dusky hair glinted crystal-clear, and the rubies gleamed on the polished ivory of her neck; but her eyes were more wonderful than any gem in their depths of tenderness. Then the man saw himself in the mirror, bronzed and hot and dusty, with hard hands and broken nails, and the stain of the soil upon him. Another glance at her, and he turned his eyes away.
"Aren't you pleased?" said Carrie.
Leland turned again, slowly, with a little sigh, one of his brown hands tightly clenched.
"You are beautiful, my dear," he said, "but, if you were old and dressed in rags, you would always be that to me. With those things shining on you, you are wonderful, but it hurts me to see them."
"Why?"
"They make the difference between us too plain. You should wear them always. It was what you were meant for, and, when I married you, I had a notion that I might be able to give you such things some day and take you where other people wear them. Everything, however, is against me now. We may not even keep Prospect, and you are only the wife of a half-ruined prairie farmer."
Carrie held her arms out. "I wouldn't be anything else if I could. You know that, too. Come and kiss me, Charley, and never say anything of the kind again."
The man hesitated, and she guessed that he was thinking of his dusty jean.