How strange that it should be on her finger again after all!
'And to think,' she muttered, 'that papa should so unkindly and, with bad taste have stung his tender and loving heart by speaking to him of me and that big butterfly soldier, Desmond! No wonder it is that Trevor seemed cold, constrained, and strange. Oh, my love, what must you have thought of me!'
And the girl, as she uttered this aloud, pressed the ring to her lips, while her eyes filled with tears. Then she sank into one of her reveries, from which, after a time, she was roused by the entrance of her father. He was attired for a ride in the Row, had his whip in his hand, and was buttoning his faultlessly fitting gloves on his thin white aristocratic hands with the care that he usually exhibited; but Clare could perceive that his face wore an undoubtedly cloudy expression.
'Papa, for whom were those lovely jewels that came here for inspection yesterday?' she asked.
'Not for you, Miss Collingwood.'
'Yet they were sent here.'
'A mistake of the shop-people.'
Clare looked up with surprise in her sweet face, for his manner, though studiously polite in tone, was curt and strange.
'Perhaps they were for Ida?' said Clare, gently.
'No.'—'Violet, then?'