The arm that she held out was gloriously white; and as every man knows, the operation of pulling on the glove of a pretty girl is apt to be prolonged. There are fingers to fit, and a little thumb to stroke daintily; while the grip upon the more substantial part of the forearm will bear repetition so long as time serves. I must have occupied myself at least five minutes with her buttons, she finding it necessary to press close to me when I did so; and the task was none the less pleasant when her rich brown hair touched my face, and her dress rustled with her long-drawn breathing. How long the process would have lasted, or what I should have said foolishly in the end, I do not know; but of a sudden she drew her arm away and exclaimed,—
"Oh, I'd quite forgotten; I wanted to ask you about the bull's-eye."
"I wanted to ask you about the bull's-eye."
—Page 82
This was her description, I may mention without anger, of the famous White Creek Diamond, which, as all London knows, I have had in my possession for the last two years. Her father, who was reputed to have some commission to buy it for a Persian, was then negotiating with me for its purchase for the sum of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds. He waited only, he said, for the coming of his partner from Valparaiso, to complete the transaction; and it was owing to the intimacy which the pour parlers brought about that I found myself then in his house. How much his daughter knew of the business, however, I could not tell, and I answered her question by another.
"What do you know about the bull's-eye?"
"That you're trying to sell it to my father," she replied, "and that he won't promise to give it to me."
"Have you asked him, then?"
"Have I asked him—why, look at him; isn't he ten years older since he met you in Bond-street?"