Part 25 (2/2)

She emphasized the word almost without knowing it, as though to force from him some response.

Although she had never actually realized it, it was a word which, in point of fact, had never yet pa.s.sed between them. Noel's fair face coloured at last, as his light eyes met her unconsciously tragical gaze.

”_Alex a son air bete aujourd'hui._”

With horrid inappropriateness, the hated gibe of her schooldays flashed into Alex' thoughts, stiffening her face into the old lines of morbid, self-conscious misery.

Part of her mind, in unwilling detachment, contemplated ruefully the oddly inadequate spectacle which they must present, staring shamefacedly at one another across the glittering token of their troth.

Frenziedly desirous of breaking the silence, heavy with awkwardness, that hung between them, she began to speak hastily and almost at random.

”Thank you so very much--I've never had such a lovely present--it's lovely; thank you so much.”

”I thought you'd like it,” muttered Noel, more overcome with confusion, if possible, than was Alex.

”Oh, yes, yes. It's lovely.”

”I thought you'd like something rather original, you know, not a conventional one.”

”Oh, yes!”

”You're sure you wouldn't rather have one of the others--that emerald one that mother liked?”

”Oh, no.”

”I dare say they'd let me change it, the man knows us very well.”

”Oh, no, no.”

”Well, I, I--I'm awfully glad you like it.”

”Yes, I _do_ like it. I--I think it's lovely.”

”I--I thought you'd like it.”

Alex began to feel as though she was in a nightmare, but she was mysteriously unable to put an end to their sorry dialogue.

”It's perfectly lovely, I think. I don't know how to thank you.”

Noel swallowed two or three times, visibly and audibly, and then took a couple of determined steps towards her.

”I think you--you'd better let me kiss you,” he said hoa.r.s.ely. ”You haven't yet, you know.”

Something deep down within Alex was surging up in angry bewilderment, and she was sufficiently aware of a sense of protest to rebut it indignantly and with lightning-swift determination.

It was the humility of love that had prompted her lover to crave that permission which should never have been asked.

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