Lover or Friend

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

'No, I forgot all about the picture,' he returned, starting up from his chair; 'but I have brought you a present.'

And the next moment he put in her hand a little case. When Audrey opened it, there was a small cross studded with diamonds of great beauty and lustre, and the whole effect was so sparkling and dainty that Audrey quite flushed with surprise and pleasure.

'Oh, mother, look how beautiful! But, Michael, how dare you waste your money on me; this must have cost a fortune!' And then she added a little thoughtfully, 'I am afraid Cyril will be sorry when he sees this; he is always lamenting that he cannot give me things.'

'I chose a bracelet for Geraldine,' he returned carelessly, as though buying diamonds were an everyday business with him. 'Would you like to see it?' and he showed her the contents of the other case. 'I have a small offering for my godson in the shape of the inevitable mug, and I mean to give this to Leonard's mamma.'

'It is very handsome; mother thinks so: don't you, mother? and Gage is devoted to bracelets; but I like mine ever so much better; it is the very perfection of a cross, and I shall value it, ah, so dearly, Michael!' and Audrey held out her hand as she spoke.

Michael pressed it silently. It was little wonder, he thought, that Audrey liked her gift better than Geraldine's; it had cost at least three times as much; in fact, its value had been so great that he had written the cheque with some slight feeling of shame and compunction. 'There is no harm, after all, and she is so fond of diamonds,' he assured himself, as he put the little case in his pocket; 'she will not know what it cost me, and he will never be able to buy ornaments for her—I may as well give myself this pleasure;' and just for the moment it did please him to see her delight over the ornament.

'It is not so much the diamonds that please me, as Michael's kindness and generosity,' she said to Cyril the next day. 'He has bought nothing for himself, and yet he has been in town a whole month; he only thought of us.'

And Cyril observed quietly, as he closed the case, that it was certainly very kind of Captain Burnett; but a close observer would have said that Michael's generosity had not quite pleased him.

'I suppose you will wear this to-night at the Charringtons'?' he asked presently.

'Yes; and those lovely flowers you have brought me,' she added, with one of her charming smiles; and somehow the cloud passed in a moment from the young man's brow.