met his hard cold stare.
"I don't believe in them," he simply said at last.
"That's exactly then," she returned with some spirit,
"what I wanted to hear!"
She fancied that at this his colour changed; it was indeed
vivid to her afterwards--for she was to have a long recall
of the scene--that she had made him quite angrily flush.
"It's a beastly unpleasant imputation, you know!"--and
he walked away from her as he had always walked at
the vicarage.
"It's none of MY making, I'm sure," said Charlotte Prime.
"If you're afraid to believe they're real--"
"Well?"--and he turned, across the room, sharp round
at her.
"Why it's not my fault."
He said nothing more, for a moment, on this; he only
came back to the table. "They're what I originally said
they were. They're rotten paste."
"Then I may keep them?"
"No. I want a better opinion."
"Than your own?"
"Than YOUR own." He dropped on the pearls another
queer stare; then, after a moment, bringing himself to
30
HYLAND
