I rose, half-laughing at her earnestness, half-ashamed of myself, and took a couple of turns across the room.
“You're right,” I cried. “It led me to perdition. You might make an allegory out of my career and entitle it 'The Mocker's Progress.'” I paused for a second or two, and then said suddenly, “Why did you from the first refuse to believe what everybody else does—before I had the chance of looking you in the eyes?”
She averted her face. “You forget that I had had the chance of searching deep beneath the mocker.”
I cannot, in reverence to her, set down what she said she found there. I stood humbled and rebuked, as a man must do when the best in him is laid out before his sight by a good woman.
A maidservant brought in tea, set the table, and departed, Eleanor drew off her gloves and my glance fell on her right hand.
“It's good of you to wear my ring to-day,” I said.
“To-day?” she echoed, with the tiniest touch of injury in her voice. “Do you think I put it on to just please you to-day?”
“It would have been gracious of you to do so,” said I.
“It wouldn't,” she declared. “It would have been mawkish and sentimental. When we parted I told you to do what you liked with the ring. Do you remember? You put it on this finger”—she waved her right hand—“and there it has stayed ever since.”
I caught the hand and touched it lightly with my lips. She coloured faintly.