“Why, what conceivable use is there in jimcrack jewellery?”
“No, no, no, no!” she cried petulantly; “I didn’t mean what you think. I like the music best, only I like——”
“Earrings better—own it!” he said in a teasing tone. “Well, I think I should have had the moral courage to own it at once, without pretending to an elevation I could not reach.”
Like the French soldiery, Elfride was not brave when on the defensive. So it was almost with tears in her eyes that she answered desperately:
“My meaning is, that I like earrings best just now, because I lost one of my prettiest pair last year, and papa said he would not buy any more, or allow me to myself, because I was careless; and now I wish I had some like them—that’s what my meaning is—indeed it is, Mr. Knight.”
“I am afraid I have been very harsh and rude,” said Knight, with a look of regret at seeing how disturbed she was. “But seriously, if women only knew how they ruin their good looks by such appurtenances, I am sure they would never want them.”
“They were lovely, and became me so!”
“Not if they were like the ordinary hideous things women stuff their ears with nowadays—like the governor of a steam-engine, or a pair of scales, or gold gibbets and chains, and artists’ palettes, and compensation pendulums, and Heaven knows what besides.”
“No; they were not one of those things. So pretty—like this,” she said with eager animation. And she drew with the point of her parasol an enlarged view of one of the lamented darlings, to a scale that would have suited a giantess half-a-mile high.
“Yes, very pretty—very,” said Knight dryly. “How did you come to lose such a precious pair of articles?”