Celia had been calling on a newly-married friend of hers. They had been
school-girls together; they had looked over the same Algebra book (or
whatever it was that Celia learnt at school--I have never been quite
certain); they had done their calisthenics side by side; they had compared
picture-postcards of LEWIS WALLER. Ah me! the fairy princes they had
imagined together in those days ... and here am I, and somewhere in the
City (I believe he is a stockbroker) is Ermyntrude's husband, and we play
our golf on Saturday afternoons, and complain of our dinners, and---- Well,
anyhow, they were both married, and Celia had been calling on Ermyntrude.
"I hope you did all the right things," I said. "Asked to see the
wedding-ring, and admired the charming little house, and gave a few hints
on the proper way to manage a husband."
"Rather," said Celia. "But it did seem funny, because she used to be older
than me at school."
"Isn't she still?"
"Oh, _no_! I'm ever so much older now.... Talking about wedding-rings," she
went on, as she twisted her own round and round, "she's got all sorts of
things written inside hers--the date and their initials and I don't know
what else."
"There can't be much else--unless perhaps she has a very large finger."
"Well, I haven't got _anything_ in mine," said Celia mournfully. She took
off the offending ring and gave it to me.
On the day when I first put the ring on her finger, Celia swore an oath
that nothing but death, extreme poverty or brigands should ever remove it.
I swore too. Unfortunately it fell off in the course of the afternoon,
which seemed to break the spell somehow. So now it goes off and on just
like any other ring. I took it from her and looked inside.
"There are all sorts of things here too," I said. "Really, you don't seem
to have read your wedding-ring at all. Or, anyhow, you've been skipping."
"There's nothing," said Celia in the same mournful voice. "I do think you
might have put something,"'