It seemed to
Gerald better that he should be the one to do this. So he went softly
down the worn green Dutch carpet of the stairs and into the
drawing-room, shutting the door softly and securely behind him.
"It is all over," Mademoiselle was saying, her face buried in the
beady arum-lilies on a red ground worked for a cushion cover by a
former pupil: "he will not marry me!"
Do not ask me how Gerald had gained the lady's confidence. He
had, as I think I said almost at the beginning, very pretty ways with
grown-ups, when he chose. Anyway, he was holding her hand,
almost as affectionately as if she had been his mother with a
headache, and saying "Don't!" and "Don't cry!" and "It'll be all
right, you see if it isn't" in the most comforting way you can
imagine, varying the treatment with gentle thumps on the back and
entreaties to her to tell him all about it.
This wasn't mere curiosity, as you might think. The entreaties were
prompted by Gerald's growing certainty that whatever was the
matter was somehow the fault of that ring. And in this Gerald was
("once more, as he told himself) right.
The tale, as told by Mademoiselle, was certainly an unusual one.
Lord Yalding, last night after dinner, had walked in the park "to
think of "
"Yes, I know," said Gerald; "and he had the ring on. And he saw "
"He saw the monuments become alive," sobbed Mademoiselle;
"his brain was troubled by the ridiculous accounts of fairies that
you tell him.
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