"First," said Frances, frowning happily, "I am afraid we must go to the Ritz, to tell Aunt Emily. She always loved you, and it will make her so happy."
"To the Ritz!" stammered the young man. "To Aunt Emily! I thought they told me your aunt and-you-"
"We quarrelled, yes," said Frances, "and she has forgiven me; but she has not forgiven herself, so she spoils me, and already I have a house to live in, and several sable coats, and, oh! everything, everything but the ring."
"I am so sorry!" cried Lee. "I thought you were poor. I hoped you were poor. But you are joking!" he exclaimed delightedly. "You are here in a working girls' home-"
"It is one of Aunt Emily's charities. She built it," said Frances. "I come here to talk to the girls."
"But," persisted Lee triumphantly, "if you are not poor, why did you pawn our silver loving-cup?"
The face of the girl became a lovely crimson, and tears rose to her eyes. As though at a confessional, she lifted her hands penitently.
"Try to understand," she begged; "I wanted you to love me, not for my money-"
"But you knew!" cried Lee.
"I had to be sure," begged the girl; "and I wanted to believe you loved me even if I did not love you. When it was too late I knew you loved me as no woman ever deserved to be loved; and I wanted that love. I could not live without it. So when I read in the papers you had returned I wouldn't let myself write you; I wouldn't let myself beg you to come to see me. I set a test for you. I knew from the papers you were at the Army and Navy Club, and that around the corner was the recruiting office. I'd often seen the sergeant there, in uniform, at the door. I knew you must pass from your club to the office many times each day, so I thought of the loving-cup and the pawn-shop. I planted it there. It was a trick, a test. I thought if you saw it in a pawn-shop you would believe I no longer cared for you, and that I was very poor. If you passed it by, then I would know you yourself had stopped caring, but if you asked about it, if you inquired for me, then I would know you came to me of your own wish, because you-"