"Mrs. Mortomley, you are eminently unhappy in your suggestions," said her friend. "We need not pursue your curious metaphor to its inevitable end. It is simply because I am Henry Werner's wife, and because, having no fortune of my own, my money comes from him that you refuse my little present."
"For once, Leonora, you have performed the marriage service over my words and yours, and made the twain one," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "To put the case plainly, I could take anything—a dry crust or a hundred thousand pounds from you, but I could not take a sovereign or a sovereign's worth from your husband."
"You mistake my husband, dear. But let that pass; or, rather, I cannot let it pass; for I must tell you, if Henry thought you wanted his help, he would be the first to ask me to offer it. Never shake your head, Dolly."
"I won't, Nora, if it vexes you."
"And say to me solemnly, love, that you only object to me because I am Henry Werner's wife; that you only refuse my present because bought with my husband's money." "That is true, Lenny. I could refuse nothing that came from you yourself."
"Then, darling, you won't refuse this;" and Mrs. Werner placed in Dolly's hands a tiny little purse and pocket-book bound together in ivory. "Charley, my cousin—you remember Charley—sent me the contents of that purse to buy some little trinket for myself as a memory of the old days at Dassell. He has married an heiress, Dolly; and those waste lands in the north, my uncle was always lamenting over, have turned out to be a sort of El Dorado. Charley's dear kind letter reached me yesterday, and I straightway wrote back to him, saying,
"Besides yourself I never had but one friend in all my life. I wanted to make a present to her, and you have supplied the means. Believe me, in granting me the power to do this you have given me ropes of pearls—to quote Lothair—and miles on miles of diamonds; so there it is, dear—poor Charley's Christmas gift to me, of which my husband knows nothing."
And she rose, and fastening her fur cloak would have departed, but that Dolly, clutching her arm, said,
"Don't go, Leonora, for an instant. Let me exorcise my demon with the help of your presence."
"Pride, dear," suggested the other.