“Very well. You’re released from the engagement you made all by yourself. I had nothing to do with it.” “No,” he said mildly, “but I can’t be released, so the only way out of it is for you to be engaged too.” He fumbled in a pocket. “I’ve bought a ring.” She sneered. “Who told you about that?” “I remembered it. John got one. It’s always done and I think this one is pretty.” She had a great curiosity to see his choice. She guessed it would be gaudy, like a child’s, but she said, “It has nothing to do with me. I don’t want to see it.” “Do look.” “Charles, you’re hopeless.” “The man said he would change it if you didn’t like it.” Into her hand he put the little box, attractively small, no doubt lined with soft white velvet, and she longed to open it. She had always wanted one of those little boxes and she remembered how often she had gazed at them, holding glittering rings, in the windows of jewellers’ shops. She looked up at Charles, her eyes bright, her lips a little parted, so young and helpless in that moment that she drew from him his first cry of passion. “Henrietta!” His hands trembled. “It’s only,” she faltered, “because I like looking at pretty things.” “I know.” He dropped to the sofa beside her. “It couldn’t be anything else.” She turned to him, her face close to his, and she asked plaintively, “But why shouldn’t it be?” She seemed to blame him; she did blame him. There was something in his presence seductively secure; there was peace: she almost loved him; she loved her power to make him tremble, and if only he could make her tremble too, she would be his. “But it isn’t anything else,” she said below her breath. “No, it isn’t,” he echoed in the loud voice of his trouble. He got up and moved away. “So just look at the ring and tell me if you like it.” He heard the box unwrapped and a voice saying, “I do like it.” “Then keep it.” “But I can’t.” “Yes, you can. It’s for you. It’s pretty, isn’t it? And you like pretty things.” “I could just look at it now and then, couldn’t I? But no, it isn’t fair.” “I don’t mind about that. “I mean fair to me.” He turned at that. “I don’t understand.” “A kind of hold,” she explained. “How could it be? I wasn’t trying to tempt you, but we’re engaged and you must have a ring.” She shook her small, clenched fists. “We’re not, we’re not! Oh, yes, you can be, if you like; but I didn’t mean it would hold me in that way. I meant it would be like a sign—of you. I shouldn’t be able to forget you; you would be there in the ring, in the box, in the drawer, like the portrait of Aunt Sophia’s—” She stopped herself. “And I can’t burn you.” “I don’t know what you are talking about. I suppose I ought to.” “No, you oughtn’t.” She sprang up, delivered from her weakness. “This is nonsense. Of course, I can’t keep your ring. Take it back, Charles. It’s beautiful. I thought it would be all red and blue like a flag, but it’s lovely. It makes my mouth water. It’s like white fire.”