e well, and, if
Philip will allow me, I will tell her more; but of course I don't know
if he will or not. What ring is that you wear?"

"It is one that Angela gave me when we became engaged. It was her
mother's."

"Will you let me look at it?"

Arthur held out his hand. The ring was an antique, a large emerald,
cut like a seal and heavily set in a band of dull gold. On the face of
the stone were engraved some mysterious characters.

"What is that engraved on the stone?"

"I am not sure; but Angela told me that Mr. Fraser had taken an
impression of it, and forwarded it to a great Oriental scholar. His
friend said that the stone must be extremely ancient, as the character
is a form of Sanscrit, and that he believed the word to mean 'For
ever' or 'Eternity.' Angela said that it had been in her mother's
family for generations, and was supposed to have been brought from the
East about the year 1700. That is all I know about it."

"The motto is better suited to a wedding-ring than to an engagement
stone," said Lady Bellamy, with one of her dark smiles.

"Why?"

"Because engagements are like promises and pie-crust, made to be
broken."

"I hope that will not be the case with ours, however," said Arthur,
attempting a laugh.

"I hope not, I am sure; but never pin your faith absolutely to any
woman, or you will regret it. Always accept her oaths and
protestations as you would a political statement, politely, and with
an appearance of perfect faith, but with a certain grain of mistrust.
Woman's fidelity is in the main a fiction. We are faithful just as men
are, so long as it suits us to be so; with this difference however,
men play false from passion or impulse, women from calculation."

"You do not draw a pleasing picture of your own sex."

"When is the truth pleasing? It is only when we clothe its nakedness
with the rags of imagination, or sweeten it with fiction, that it can
please. Of itself, it is so ugly a thing that society in its
refinement will not even hear it, but prefers to employ a
corresponding formula. Thus all passion, however vile, is called by
the name of 'love,' all superstitious terror and grovelling attempts
to conciliate the unseen are known as 'religion,' while selfish greed
and the hungry lust for power masquerade as laudable 'ambition.' Men
and women, especially women, hate the truth, because, like the
electric light, it shows them as they are, and that is vile. It has
grown so strange to t