"
Somehow I couldn't feel properly insulted. The whole business struck me
as irresistibly comical. I lay back in my chair--my uninvited chair--and
roared with laughter.
I couldn't forbear asking him what treatment he'd recommend.
He pointed to the door, and said laconically: "Fresh air."
I retorted by laying the diamond locket before him.
"My dear fellow," I said, as he gazed at it transfixed, "don't let us go
on like a pair of fools. Eleanor charged me to give you this, and beg
you to return."
I don't believe he heard me at all. That flashing trinket was far more
eloquent than any words of mine. He laid his head in his hands beside
it, and his whole body trembled with emotion. He trembled and trembled,
till finally I got tired of waiting. I poked him in the back, and
reminded him that my car was waiting down stairs. He rose with a
strange, bewildered air, and submitted like a child to be led into the
street. He had the locket clenched in his hand, and every now and then
he would glance at it as though unable to believe his eyes.
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