“In francs—well, in francs it’s four hundred. Now, there’s a ring, I call that a very good bargain for four hundred francs—there’s something for your money, there’s body in it.” He pointed to a large and deep-colored sapphire set in a circle of diamonds. Regina saw that the ring was beautiful, but, womanlike, her eyes wandered to the other gewgaws displayed in the window.
“I have a good many rings,” she said hesitatingly. Then her eyes fell upon a thick gold curb bracelet clasped by a horse-shoe of diamonds.
“This is handsome,” she said. Her voice was quite faint, for she felt that she was approaching that subject which had troubled her so much.
“Oh, horrid!” said he. “I love to see you with plenty of rings, but as to bracelets—I can’t endure them.”
“Never?” said Regina. “Never?”
“No, I never buy a bracelet for anybody. I like to give you something that you can wear for weeks or years together. Bracelets always seem in the way, they don’t set off a pretty wrist, and they draw attention to an ugly one. Besides, they are intensely disagreeable if you happen to put your arm around my neck. Come, let us go inside and see how the sapphire suits your hand.”
He led the way into the shop, as a man always does when he is going to buy something for a woman. Have you ever noticed, my reader, how the most polite of men, who stands aside on all occasions for the lady to precede him, marches into a shop right in front of her when he is going to make her a present?
Now, Alfred Whittaker’s knowledge of French was what may be described as infinitesimal, and it being his habit to state his business whenever he entered a shop of any kind, he did not wait for Regina’s faulty but more understandable explanations.
“Vous-avez un ring la,” pointing with a sturdy British thumb toward the window, “sappheer.”
“Ah, ah, une broche, monsieur?”