“It will be an opportunity,” I remarked, as cheerfully as possible, “for me to bid good-bye to the ladies.”
They turned round when Mr. Ruck came in, and looked at him without confusion. “Well, you had better go home to breakfast,” remarked his wife. Miss Sophy made no remark, but she took the bracelet from the attendant and gazed at it very fixedly. Mr. Ruck seated himself on an empty stool and looked round the shop.
“Well, you have been here before,” said his wife; “you were here the first day we came.”
Miss Ruck extended the precious object in her hands towards me. “Don’t you think that sweet?” she inquired.
I looked at it a moment. “No, I think it’s ugly.”
She glanced at me a moment, incredulous. “Well, I don’t believe you have any taste.”
“Why, sir, it’s just lovely,” said Mrs. Ruck.
“You’ll see it some day on me, any way,” her daughter declared.
“No, he won’t,” said Mr. Ruck, quietly.
“It will be his own fault, then,” Miss Sophy observed.