“Just as soon as business will stand for it. Not a minute longer.”
On his return home Y.D., after maintaining an exasperating silence until supper was finished, casually handed the package to his daughter.
“Some trinket Transley sent out,” he explained. “He’ll be here himself as soon as business permits.”
She took the package with a glow of expectancy, started to open it, then folded the paper again and ran up to her room. Here she tempted herself for minutes before she would finally open it, whetting the appetite of anticipation to the full.... The gem justified her little play. It was magnificent; more beautiful and more expensive than anything her father ever bought her.
She hesitated strangely about putting it on. To Zen it seemed that the putting on of Transley’s ring would be a voluntary act symbolizing her acceptance of him. If she had been carried off her feet—swept into the position in which she found herself—that explanation would not apply to the deliberate placing of his ring upon her finger. There would be no excuse; she could never again plead that she had been the victim of Transley’s precipitateness. This would be deliberate, and she must do it herself.
She rather blamed Transley for not having left his old business and come to perform this rite himself, as he should have done. What was one day of business, more or less? Yet Zen gathered no hint from that incident that always, with Transley, business would come first. It was symbolic—prophetic—but she did not see the sign nor understand the prophecy.
She held the ring between her fingers; slipped it off and on her little fingers; held it so the rays of the sun fell through the window upon it and danced before her eyes in all their primal colors.
“I have to put this on,” she said, pursing her lips firmly, “and—and forget about Dennison Grant!”
For a long time she thought of that and all it meant. Then she raised the jewel to her lips.
“Help me—help me—” she murmured. With a quick little impetuous motion she drew it on to the finger where it belonged. There she gazed upon it for a moment, as though fascinated by it. Then she fell upon her bed and lay motionless until long after the valley was wrapped in shadow.