He laid a red plush box on her eager palm, slowly, delaying a moment en connaisseur, to appreciate the delicate wrist and the shell-pink fragile shades of the finger-tips.
"It's a ring, a valuable ring, to tempt me!" she thought, smiling wisely to herself. She opened the box—immensely surprised. Inside was a tiny watch bracelet in gold and enamel, rare in design, but quite modest as an offering from him.
She slipped it on her wrist, nodding appreciatively, choosing her words carefully.
"How cunning! What a dear little watch! How clever of you!"
"Wait!" He leaned forward, offering the other box. "There is a choice, you know!"
She pressed the spring, and remained staring, caught by surprise. Against a background of royal blue, a necklace of pearls met her eyes, luminous and humanly, nakedly beautiful—a necklace such as once she had stood before on Fifth Avenue, breathless with desire, coveting each pearl that lay like a rare and perfectly beautiful nymph asleep against the lawn. The choice! She understood the cruel cleverness of it now. She shut the cover quickly, afraid to let her fingers know the delight of such a caress. Then she raised her eyes steadily to his keen scrutiny.
"You ran no risk!" she said scornfully.
"Take it! I ask nothing!" he said quietly.
"Then why offer it?"
"That you may understand my nature," he said in a lower voice—"how I am when I care!"