At the very last moment, on the morning of the wedding day, a
present came from the aunts--an old box for handkerchiefs. The cover
was inlaid with sea-shells and there was a little looking-glass
inside.
Very soon it was all over and then to her own intense surprise she
was alone in the train with Paul. What had she expected? She did not
know--but somehow not this.
They were in a first-class carriage. Paul was doing the thing nobly.
He sat close to her, his broad knee against her dress. How broad his
knee was, a great expanse of black shining cloth. He took her hand
and rested it on the expanse, and, at the touch of the stuff and the
throb of the warm flesh beneath it, she shivered a little and would
wish to have drawn her hand away. He seemed so much larger than she
had expected; from his knee to his high shining white collar was an
immense distance and midway there was a thick gold watch-chain
rising and falling as he breathed. He smelt very faintly of tooth-
powder.
But on the whole she was comfortable; only the thin gold ring round
her finger felt strange. Deep in a little pocket inside her blouse
was the ring with the three little pearls.
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