“Bayard chose it in Bombay—I asked him. He brought it up with him, and forgot all about it till he was packing again yesterday. Ain’t you going to look inside?”
She opened it joyfully, never doubting what she was about to see, and uttered a little sound of dismay. It was Brian’s cheerful eyes that smiled quizzically at her, their expression curiously natural, though the rest of the miniature showed the mannered stiffness of the native artist.
“Do you like it?” asked Richard anxiously. “I got it done here to send down after Bayard to take with him and have it put in the locket. I was afraid you would miss that calotype of your brother when I took it to the painter, but it was only two or three days in the bustle of packing up, and you happened not to think of it.”
Eveleen was hardly listening to him. She lifted her eyes tragically from the locket in her lap. “And why not yours?” she demanded.
“Mine? Why, I was sure you would rather have your brother’s,” he replied, in all innocence.
“Major Ambrose, there are times when I’d like—I’d like—— I won’t tell you what I’d like to do to you, but ’twould not be pleasant.”
“Then you ain’t pleased?” incredulously.
“Why in the world would you put Brian into it?”
“Well, it was bought with that first money he paid back, you remember, and it seemed suitable——”
Eveleen laughed drearily. “D’ye tell me that, now? Well then, with the last money he pays back will you let him get me a locket and put you into it? Then I’ll wear you both at once.”