, as if he were reluctant to let it go out of his hands. And then,
looking at her, she thought his glance was a little uncertain. She
thought he hesitated, and when he finally slid the ring over her finger,
"I wouldn't wear it until it is reset," he said. "That setting isn't
gold. It's hardly decent."

"Yes," she assented; "Clara will laugh at us."

"She won't if we don't show it to her until it's fit to appear. In fact,
I would rather you wouldn't. As it is now, the thing doesn't represent
my gift to you."

She felt this was Harry's conventional streak asserting itself. But even
she had to admit that an engagement ring which was palpably not gold was
rather out of the way.

"You'd better keep it a day or two and look it over and make up your
mind how you want it set, and then we'll spring it on them," he
advised.

But now it was finally on her finger, she did not want to think it would
ever have to be taken off again. She drew her glove over it. The great
facets showed sharp angles under the thin kid. She wished the sapphire
were not quite so large, so difficult to reconcile with everything else.
Now that she had the perfect thing with her, clasping her so heavily
around the third finger, she was half afraid it was going to be too much
for her, after all.

VII

A SPELL IS CAST

It was hers! She did not believe it. It had been done too quickly. It
seemed to her she had hardly felt Harry slip it on her finger before
they had left the shop; that she had hardly shaken off the musty
inclosed atmosphere, before Harry had left her on the corner of
California and Powell Streets--left her alone with the ring! Still, she
didn't believe she had it, even while she looked at the large lump it
made under her glove. She kept feeling it with a cautious finger-tip.

A trio of girls she knew flocked off the California Street car and
surrounded her. They were going to the White House for bargains in shirt
waists. They wanted to carry her off in their company. They encompassed
her in a chatter of lace and lingerie. There were held up to her all
the interests of her every-day existence; but these seemed to have no
part in her real life. They had never appeared more remote and trivial.
She kept her conscious hand in the folds of her skirt. She would have
liked to strip off her glove and show them the ring. It would have
entertained them so much. To herself its entertainment was of the
Arabian Nights--the way of its findi