"I can do better by you than that," I cried gaily. I opened my office safe and took from it' the locket with the emerald heart of which I have already spoken. It was the only thing I possessed which could by any stretch of courtesy be considered a worthy exchange for the cigar case. Her eyes widened like a child's at the sight of the trinket.
"But not for me, surely," she cried.
"For no one else in the world. I got it, intending it for this portrait of my mother,--which you see I am going to take out; it doesn't fit very well;--and then I discovered that my mother hated the idea of emeralds. So you see it hadn't been intended for her, really. It was waiting for you,--if you will accept it. You don't dislike emeralds?"
She did not answer except by a little choked laugh, but her face was eloquent for her. Suddenly she lifted the locket to her lips.
"Oh, come!" I cried, feeling that I must somehow break the tension under which she was laboring. "Perfume on the violets is nothing to such extravagance as kisses on the emeralds. Speaking of violets, let us go down and see if Barney has any to-day. He might, by luck. If he has, we'll buy him out."
I picked up the cigar case to put it away, and I confess I was on the point of putting it into my safe when some instinct struck me between the eyes and I pretended I had only gone there to lock up. I brought the case back in my hand, then formally transferred the cigars from my own case to it, tossed that into the waste-basket, and slipped the be-diamonded thing into my pocket as calmly as though diamonds were my daily wear. She beamed, and for the first time the trouble that had been hovering in her eyes seemed to melt quite away.
"Oh, thank you!" she cried. "You do understand beautifully. I think you are a Story-Book Man yourself."
"Do you know, I always have felt that I had undeveloped capacities in that direction," I admitted confidentially. "Only it took a Story-Book Girl to find them out. Come, we will celebrate the day with violets."
Barney had heaps of violets, fortunately, and we had great fun finding places to fasten them upon her. Barney needed only a crumb of encouragement to show himself up picturesquely, and I was glad to set him going, for I wanted to see the shadow on Jean's face entirely disappear. They had become good friends on their own account, it seemed, and Jean was cheeking him delightfully in return for some of his sly remarks, when suddenly she stopped and I felt a little shiver run through her. Another man had stopped before Barney's stand,--Mr. Garney, the Latin tutor. His eyes were so eagerly intent upon Jean that he hardly took note of my presence.
"You look like Flora herself, Miss Benbow," he said, raising his hat. "Are violets your favorites?" (I saw that he was laying the information away for future reference, and I wanted to choke him on the spot.)