“From him?” she cried. “How horrid!”
“I call it utterly charming of him,” protested Hetty, who had adopted as many of Lady Hartley’s phrases as her memory would hold. “We all know that he admired you, and I think it too sweet of him to show that he bears no malice now that you are marrying somebody else. Had he sent you anything paltry I should have loathed him. But such a present as this, so simple yet so distingué, in such perfect taste——”
“Cease your raptures, Hetty, for mercy’s sake!” cried Eve, wrapping the jewel-box in the crumpled paper, and tying the string round it rather roughly. “Would you accept any gift from a man you hate?”
“It would depend upon the gift. I wouldn’t advise my worst enemy to try me with a sapphire crescent—such sapphires as those!”
“You are a mighty judge of sapphires!” said Eve, contemptuously; after which unkind remark she ate her breakfast of bread and butter and home-made marmalade in moody silence. And it was a rare thing for Eve to be silent or moody.
Vansittart’s step was heard upon the gravel before the curling-tongs were done with in the upper story, and Eve ran out to the porch to meet him, with the jeweller’s parcel in her hand. They walked about the garden together, between rows of blossoming peas and feathery asparagus, by borders of roses and pinks, talking of Sefton and his gift. Eve wanted to send it back to the giver.
“I can decline it upon the ground that I don’t approve of wedding presents except from one’s own and one’s bridegroom’s kindred,” she said. “I won’t be uncivil.”
“I fear he would think the return of his gift uncivil, however sweetly you might word your refusal. Wedding gifts are such a customary business; it is an unheard-of act to send one back. No, Eve, I fear you must keep the thing,” with a tone of disgust; “but you need not wear it.”
“Wear it! I should think not! Of course I shall obey you; but I hate the idea of being under an obligation to Mr. Sefton, who—well, who always made me feel more than any one else that I wasn’t one of the elect. His friendliness was more humiliating than other people’s stand-offishness. I wonder you mind offending him, Jack. I know you don’t like him.”
“No; but he is my sister’s neighbour; and he and the Hartleys are by way of being friendly.”