This she was about to do as they sat in the verandah after dinner, when her husband turned to her with a gracious smile.
"You're looking lovely to-night, Hester! Your day at Ennore yesterday has brought back the English roses to your cheeks. Fine birds deserve fine feathers, shall we say? See what I've brought to adorn your lovely white neck!"
He opened an elegant leather case and held up triumphantly a beautiful diamond pendant.
"Oh, Alfred," gasped Hester, after a moment's silence. "Have you actually got that for me? Oh, I can't—I won't have it! You must give it back! You will return it?"
"Return it, forsooth! A nice suggestion when an affectionate husband presents his wife with a gift! Besides, Hester, you really haven't the correct toilette without jewels. That trumpery gold cross is the only thing you have to wear. It's been my despair at all our parties to see you without diamonds when the frowsy dowagers are resplendent with them—and the young brides into the bargain. This pendant is a simple necessity. I'll add a tiara when I can."
"Never! I wouldn't wear one for the world! And if you want to make me happy you'll return this. Oh, how could you waste money on it, especially"—she paused with a little catch in her voice—"especially since you said you couldn't afford to give me the rupees to pay for those carriages though I told you I had promised them."
"Well, don't you see I had it in my mind to give you this surprise—and a nice reception you've given it!"
Mr. Rayner snapped the lid of the elegant case with an angry air. "Anyhow the diamonds are yours and you must wear them," he added, throwing the case into her lap. "I'm not going to be made a fool of, taking them back with my tail between my legs like a whipped puppy. Why, it would soon get out that I am a hen-pecked husband, and so I am, between one thing or another," he ended sulkily, and betook himself to the perusal of the Madras Mail.
Hester, though she hated concealment, felt that this was not the moment to announce that the carriages for Ennore had been duly arranged for, and that she would have to go next day to help Mrs. Fellowes to entertain the Eurasian girls. Neither could she, at this moment, make any further remonstrance concerning the foolish gift. She would watch for an early opportunity when her husband was in a better mood, and try to persuade him to return it to the jewellers. The pendant was, in itself, vulgar and ostentatious. She felt she could never wear it. She smiled when she pictured her mother's face if she saw the flaring jewel upon her young daughter's neck. Mrs. Bellairs disapproved of jewellery for girls, even for young matrons, and her prejudice was so well known in her circle that among Hester's numerous wedding gifts there had been a marked absence of trinkets of any kind, and her husband had more than once expressed his regret that his wife should be unadorned save by the little antique gold cross.
Perhaps she had been unkind in making such a determined stand, Hester thought now. But when she recalled her husband's assurance that they were spending so largely that even seventy-five rupees would prove a strain on their month's finances, she felt reassured that she would only be acting as a true wife should in urging that the gaudy gift should again take its place among the jeweller's wares; and, if she remained firm, surely Alfred would not force it upon her.