Page:The Professor's House - Willa Cather.pdf/82

 Lillian held up lovingly in her fingers a green-gold necklace, evidently an old one, without stones. “Of course emeralds would be beautiful, Louie, but they seem a little out of scale—to belong to a different scheme of life than any you and Rosamond can live here. You aren’t, after all, outrageously rich. When would she wear them?”

“At home, Dearest, with me, at our own dinnertable at Outland! I like the idea of their being out of scale. I’ve never given her any jewels. I’ve waited all this time to give her these. To me, her name spells emeralds.”

Mrs. St. Peter smiled, easily persuaded. “You’ll never be able to keep them. You’ll show them to her.”

“Oh, no, I won’t! They are to stay at the jeweller s, in Chicago, until we all go down for the birthday party. That’s another secret we have to keep. We have such lots of them!” He bent over her hand and kissed it with warmth.

St. Peter swung in over the window rail. “That is always the cue for the husband to enter, isn’t it? What’s this about Chicago, Louie?”

He sat down, and Marsellus brought him some tea, lingering beside his chair. “It must be a secret from Rosie, but you see it happens that the date of your lecture engagement at the University of Chicago is coincident with her birthday, so I have planned that we shall all go down together. And