“Certainly,” she answered, looking up at him.
“I should deem it a favour,” he continued. “If the world does not get what it expects, I imagine it will begin to inquire why; and if it cannot find reasons it will make them.”
In due course the diamond crescent arrived.
“It is rather nice of the old thing,” was Millicent's comment. She held the jewel at various angles in various lights. There was no doubt that this was the handsomest present she had received—sent direct from the jeweller's shop with an uncompromising card inside the case. She never saw the irony of it; but Sir John had probably not expected that she would. He enjoyed it alone—as he enjoyed or endured most things.
Lady Cantourne examined it with some curiosity.
“I have never seen such beautiful diamonds,” she said simply.
There were other presents to be opened and examined. For the invitations had not been sent out, and many were willing to pay handsomely for the privilege of being mentioned among the guests. It is, one finds, after the invitations have been issued that the presents begin to fall off.
But on this particular morning the other presents fell on barren ground. Millicent only half heeded them. She could not lay the diamond crescent finally aside. Some people have the power of imparting a little piece of their individuality to their letters, and even to a commonplace gift. Sir John was beginning to have this power over Millicent. She was rapidly falling into a stupid habit of feeling uneasy whenever she thought of him. She was vaguely alarmed at his uncompromising adherence to the position he had assumed. She had never failed yet to work her will with men—young and old—by a pretty persistence, a steady flattery, a subtle pleading manner. But Sir John had met all her wiles with his adamantine smile. He would not openly declare himself an enemy—which she argued to herself would have been much nicer of him. He was merely a friend of her aunt's, and from that contemplative position he never stepped down. She could not quite make out what he was “driving at,” as she herself put it. He never found fault, but she knew that his disapproval of her was the result of long and careful study. Perhaps in her heart—despite all her contradictory arguments—she knew that he was right.
“I wonder,” she said half-aloud, taking up the crescent again, “why he sent it to me?”
Lady Cantourne, who was writing letters at a terrible rate, glanced sharply up. She was beginning to be aware of Millicent's unspoken fear of Sir John. Moreover, she was clever enough to connect it with her niece's daily increasing love for the man who was soon to be her husband.