But the day before leaving Dublin he looked
around anxiously for a high-class jewellery establishment, in
which he purchased what he considered would suit her best.
It was with a most awkward and unwonted feeling that after
entering and closing the door of his room he sat down, opened the
morocco case, and held up each of the fragile bits of gold-work
before his eyes. Many things had become old to the solitary man
of letters, but these were new, and he handled like a child an
outcome of civilization which had never before been touched by his
fingers. A sudden fastidious decision that the pattern chosen
would not suit her after all caused him to rise in a flurry and
tear down the street to change them for others. After a great
deal of trouble in reselecting, during which his mind became so
bewildered that the critical faculty on objects of art seemed to
have vacated his person altogether, Knight carried off another
pair of ear-rings. These remained in his possession till the
afternoon, when, after contemplating them fifty times with a
growing misgiving that the last choice was worse than the first,
he felt that no sleep would visit his pillow till he had improved
upon his previous purchases yet again. In a perfect heat of
vexation with himself for such tergiversation, he went anew to the
shop-door, was absolutely ashamed to enter and give further
trouble, went to another shop, bought a pair at an enormously
increased price, because they seemed the very thing, asked the
goldsmiths if they would take the other pair in exchange, was told
that they could not exchange articles bought of another maker,
paid down the money, and went off with the two pairs in his
possession, wondering what on earth to do with the superfluous
pair.
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