Rachel looked too.

The oak spray came out of its wrappings first. She found it hard to take her eyes from it-two diamond oak-leaves and three acorns, the cups shining with brilliants, and each acorn a pearl, two white and one black.

She said, “Oh, how lovely!” and Mr. Thomas Enderby agreed.

“It was my father’s design. It was commissioned by the Duchess of Southshire, but she died before it was completed. Now this chain came to us from abroad-Italian work, made to a Russian order.”

The chain was about twenty-five inches in length. It had pale gold links, most exquisitely fine, between alternate sapphires and emeralds, each stone beautifully cut and set with diamond sparks, the whole effect one of lightness, brilliance, and grace.

“This of course is the finest stone,” said Mr. Enderby. He touched the third ornament caressingly. “There is nothing like a ruby after all, and this is one of the best we have had. Look at the color!”

The ruby burned between two diamond wings-the lifted arch of an eagle’s wings. Between the flash of them the stone seemed alive.

“I am not, unfortunately, at liberty to give you the particular history of this piece,” pursued Thomas Enderby. “My father designed it for a member of a royal house, and it has recently come back to us.” He turned to Gale Brandon. “Those, sir, are our three best pieces.”

Rachel felt rather dazzled. The jewels were most beautiful. They were also most costly. She admired the romance of the gesture which would offer one of these exquisite things as a declaration of love without any certainty of its acceptance. But quick on this came the thought, “It spoils it all to let another woman choose.”

It was at this moment that he leaned to her and said,

“Which do you like best?”

The words struck a spark of resentment from her. She said, a thought quickly,

“But it isn’t what I like. I can’t choose for a woman I don’t know. Pearls are for one sort of woman, rubies for another, and emeralds and sapphires for another still. You’ll have to choose for yourself. I can’t help you.”

Gale Brandon’s eyes danced with a teasing light. He looked most extraordinarily alive in the little dark room.

“Isn’t that too bad!” he said. “But I wasn’t asking you to choose for me. I just felt very interested to know which of Mr. Enderby’s pretty things you liked best. Because, you see, I’ve figured it out this way. Say there’s one that I like best. Well, if you choose it too, then there are two votes for that. Do you see what I mean?”

“But it isn’t my vote that ought to count, because I’m quite in the dark. Why, I don’t even know the color of her hair.”

A smile flickered over his face.

“Well, we’ll all be getting gray hair some day. I hope she’s going to wear it a good long time, so it would be better to choose something that’s going to go on looking good when she’s got those silver threads among the gold.”

So she had golden hair… It didn’t go a good gray as a rule… She said in the friendliest tone she could compass,

“If she is fair, the emerald and sapphire chain would suit her.”

“But I didn’t say she was fair, Miss Treherne.”

“I thought you did. You quoted the song about silver threads among the gold.”

“That was a figure of speech. I certainly shouldn’t call her fair-except in the romantic sense-and I can’t see that there is one of these jewels that wouldn’t be mighty becoming to her. But I really would appreciate it if you would tell me which one appeals to you, Miss Treherne. You see, it’s the woman’s point of view I’d like to get.”

She found herself laughing a little scornfully.

“Do you really think all women are alike?”

He laughed too.

“It would certainly be dull if they were. But I would really like to know which of these pretty things you do like the best. I’m interested in your point of view. And then I’d like to know whether you like the one that I like, and when we’ve settled that we’ll ask Mr. Enderby which is the one he’d save if his shop was burning.”

Thomas Enderby’s hand went out a little way and drew back.

An irrational gust of gaiety blew into Rachel’s mind. She put out her own hand and touched the oak spray with its pearl acorns.

“Oh, that’s my one. I lost my heart to it at once. But I don’t believe Mr. Enderby can bear to let it go. He’s lost his heart to it too.”

“And I’ve lost mine,” said Gale Brandon-“so there are three of us. Well, Mr. Enderby-what about it? Will you let me have it-for the loveliest and kindest lady in the world?”

“It’s not everyone I’d let it go to,” said Thomas Enderby.

Chapter Thirteen

Rachel got back to find that she had missed Mrs. Barber by a comfortable margin. Ella, meeting her in the hall, remarked on how unfortunate this was.

“Away yesterday, out today. I only hope, Rachel, that she won’t think you want to avoid her. Of course quite ridiculous, because she is such an exceptionally interesting and charming person, and I know she particularly wanted to talk to you about slum clearance.”

Cosmo Frith, emerging from the study, demanded why any human being should imagine that any other human being should want to talk about slums. He slipped his arm through Rachel’s and kissed her on the cheek.

“Well, my dear, I needn’t ask how you are. You look fine. And who was the cavalier? Wouldn’t he stay to lunch-or didn’t you ask him? I thought he looked pretty well pleased with himself as he drove away.”

Rachel laughed. Her color was bright.

“Oh, I asked him, but he had to get back. It was Mr. Brandon, the American who has taken the Halketts’ house for the winter. I thought you had met.”

“No. Fancies himself, doesn’t he?”

Rachel laughed again.

“I think he fancies everything, and that includes himself. I’ve never met anyone who enjoys things so much. We’ve been shopping Christmas presents.”

Cosmo looked exactly like a child who hears another child praised. He was a handsome man of forty-five. His gray hair set off a fresh complexion and a pair of fine dark eyes with well marked brows. His waist measurement was rather larger than it had been a year or two ago, and there were moments when he feared a double chin. He withdrew his arm and said with a lift of the eyebrows,

“Christmas presents-in November? What a nauseating idea!”

“And why nauseating?” inquired Ella Comperton. “I think this modern fashion of laughing at Christmas is a terrible sign of the times. My dear mother always used to say, ‘Ah, it isn’t the gift-it’s the loving preparation that counts,’ and we used to be set down to our Christmas presents as soon as the summer holidays were over.”

“Horrible!” said Cosmo. “But I suppose that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children hadn’t been invented then.” He turned to Rachel. “And what were you and Mr. Brandon lovingly preparing?”

“Chocolates, and toys, and gloves, and handbags and stockings for a lot of young people. He didn’t really need me at all. He knew exactly what he wanted.”

They went in to lunch. Cosmo as usual monopolized the conversation, a good deal to the annoyance of the Wadlows and Miss Comperton. Maurice and Cherry having departed, their parents wished to talk about them. Ella wished to talk about slums. She had come primed from Mrs. Barber, and she wished to pose as an expert. But there was no talking against Cosmo. He told anecdotes, and laughed at them heartily in a deep, rollicking voice. He narrated the inner history of the Guffington divorce. He gave them the reasons which had led the ultra-particular Lady Walbrook to give her consent to her daughter’s marriage to a very notorious gentleman, Mr. Demosthenes Ryland. He had inside information as to the exact circumstances in which that rising star Seraphine had broken her Hollywood contract. Not that he neglected the excellent food with which he was served. He appeared to be able to eat and talk at the same time.