'Only the other day,' she said, smiling, 'Penelope noticed that I had no necklace, nothing to wear in the evening—and now you see what she has had sent me!'
'Penelope? Then, do you think these pearls are a gift from my cousin?'
'Of course they are! Who else would think of giving me anything of the kind?'
'Cannot you imagine any other'—Wantley's voice shook a little in spite of himself—'any other person who might wish to give you pleasure?'
Cecily looked up puzzled. He came round and stood by the table on which lay the two gifts received by her that day. Very deliberately he took up one of Mrs. Robinson's soft lead-pencils, and then wrote across a torn piece of drawing-paper,
'This is from a lover
Who will love you for ever,'
and laid it down so that it covered the pearls. 'You see,' he said, 'this is not, as was the other gift to-day, friendship's offering. But, still, the words I have written there are meant quite as sincerely. These pearls belonged to my mother. They were given to her by my father on the first anniversary of their wedding-day, and I know how happy it would have made her—have made them both—to think that you would wear them.'
He spoke quickly, and yet after the first moment, with great gravity. As Cecily made no answer, he added: 'You will not refuse to take them from me?'