"Good afternoon, Joan."
But as he moved to open the door, his eyes were caught by the flash from a facet of the diamond; and the thought came to him that its presence there assorted ill with his latest assurance to the girl. Catching it up, he offered it to Joan as she was about to go.
"And this," he said, smiling—"don't forget it, please."
Automatically her hand moved out to take it, but was stayed. Her eyes widened with true consternation, and she gasped faintly.
"You—you don't mean it?"
"Oh, yes, I do. Please take it. I've really no use for it, Joan, and—well, you and I know what professional life means." He grinned awry. "It might be of service to you some day."
With a cry of gratitude that was half a sob, but with no other acknowledgment, the girl accepted the gift, stumbled through the door in a daze, and so from the house.
XXXI
So it seemed that all men were much alike. Joan knew but two types, the man who lived by his brains and the man who lived by his wits, but had no more hesitation in generalizing from these upon masculine society as a whole than a scientist has in constructing a thesis upon the habits of prehistoric mammalia from the skull of a pterodactyl and the thigh-bone of an ichthyosaurus....