"What curious creatures women are!" he thought. "Here is an avowed infidel who seems inexpressibly shocked because I decry the marriage ceremony. What formalists they are at best! If they are not in fear of the day of judgment they tremble at the notion of being ill-spoken of by their neighbours. I'll warrant this sweet girl is as anxious to keep her landlady's good opinion as George Whitefield is to go to heaven."
He talked to her of the comedy. It was to be acted on the following Monday.
"I have secured a side-box, and I count upon being honoured with the company of the joint authors," he said.
Tonia's eyes sparkled at the thought of her triumph. To have her words spoken by David Garrick—by the lovely Mrs. Pritchard—to sit unseen in the shadow of the curtained side-box, while her daydreams took form and substance in the light of the oil lamps!
"My father and I will be proud to have such good places," she said. "We usually sit at the back of the pit when Mr. Garrick is kind enough to give us a pass. Father has given me a silk gown from Hilditch's in the city, the first I have had."
"If you would suffer me to add a pearl necklace," cried Kilrush, thinking of a certain string of Oriental pearls which was almost an heirloom, and which he remembered on his mother's neck forty years ago. He had taken the red morocco case out of an iron coffer not long since, and had looked at the ornament, longing to clasp it round Tonia's throat. The hands that held the case trembled a little as he imagined the moment when he should fasten the diamond clasp on that exquisite neck.
"You are too generous, sir. I take gifts from no one but my father, except, indeed, the roses you are so kind as to bring me."
"Happy roses, to win acceptance where pearls are scorned! The necklace was my mother's, and has been wasting in darkness for near half a century. She died before I went to Eton. Would you but let me lend it to you—only to air the pearls."
"No, no, no; no borrowed finery! I should hate to play the daw in peacocks' feathers."
"You are a contradictory creature, madam; but you would have to be more cruel and more cutting than a north-east wind before I would quarrel with you."