"Guess, can't you?" he persisted.
Then when she couldn't he came a step closer to her.
"Look," he said, and suddenly opened his hand.
In it lay a ring, a single diamond set on a platinum band. It was not a huge stone, ostentatious and vulgar; but one whose water was as translucent as a drop of dew. As she beheld it Bab caught her breath.
"For me!" she cried.
David nodded. In his hand was a chain, too, a finely woven thread of gold. "Till we've told them," he said, his voice low, "wear it round your neck, Bab."
Her breath came swiftly through parted lips. Beeston's pearl, worth five times David's gift, had not begun to thrill her so. It was the significance of the ring, all it conveyed, that now made her heart leap and the color pour into her face.
The following Saturday the family, bag and baggage, moved to Long Island. Half the servants, Crabbe in charge, already were established there; and Saturday afternoon, sometime after luncheon, Beeston and Miss Elvira were to follow. The run to Eastbourne was short—not more than an hour; and they were to take the limousine. Bab and David, however, elected to leave earlier. Just after breakfast David's roadster was brought round to the door.
The morning was brilliant, a burst of sunlight glorifying even that ugly neighborhood, the street lined with its rows of brownstone fronts. The air, too, was animating. May was at hand, but the morning in spite of that had a tang like October. Bab wisely had tucked herself in furs, a muff and scarf of silver fox. At the curb she found David already waiting in his motor.