Vansittart thought of Fiordelisa. Perhaps in every man’s life there comes one such ordeal as that—love cast at his feet, love worthless to him; but true love all the same, and priceless.
Eve Marchant’s wedding gifts were few but costly. She had no wide circle of acquaintances to shower feather fans and ivory paper-knives, standard lamps and silver boxes, teapots and cream-jugs, fruit spoons and carriage clocks upon her, till she sat among her treasures, bewildered and oppressed, like Tarpeia under the iron rain from warrior hands. Neighbours had stood aloof from the family at the Homestead, and could hardly come with gifts in their hands, now that the slighted girl was going to marry a man of some standing in an adjoining county, and to take her place among the respectabilities. The givers therefore were few, but the gifts were worthy. Mrs. Vansittart gave the pearl necklace which she had worn at her own bridal—a single string of perfect pearls, with a diamond clasp that had been in the family for a century and a half. Lady Hartley gave a set of diamond stars worthy to blaze in the fashionable firmament on a Drawing-Room day. Sir Hubert gave a three-quarter bred mare of splendid shape and remarkable power, perfect as hack or hunter, on whose back Eve had already taken her first lessons in equitation. And for the bridegroom! His gifts were of the choicest and the best considered; jewels, toilet nécessaire, travelling bag, books innumerable. He watched for every want, anticipated every fancy.
“Pray, pray don’t spoil me,” cried Eve. “You make me feel so horribly selfish. You load me with gifts, and you say you are not rich. You are ruining yourself for me.”
“A man can afford to ruin himself once in his life for his nearest and dearest,” he answered gaily. “Besides, if I give you all you want now, I shall cure you of any incipient tendency to extravagance.”
“I have no such tendency. My nose has been kept too close to the grindstone of poverty.”
“Poor, pretty little nose! Happily the grindstone has not hurt it.”
“And as for wants, who said I wanted Tennyson and Browning bound in vellum, or a travelling bag as big as a house? I have no wants, or they are all centred upon one object, which isn’t to be bought with money. I want you and your love.”
“I and my love are yours—have been yours since that night in the snowy road, when you entered into my life at a flash, like the sunlight through Newton’s shutter, like Undine, like Titania.”