For three days I wandered past gold and silversmiths with the ring in my pocket ... and for three days Celia went about without a wedding-ring, and, for all I know, without even her marriage-lines in her muff.  And on the fourth day I walked boldly in.

“I want,” I said, “a wedding-ring engraved,” and I felt in my pockets.  “Not initials,” I said, and I felt in some more pockets, “but—­but—­” I tried the trousers pockets again.  “Well, look here, I’ll be quite frank with you.  I—­er—­want—­” I fumbled in my ticket-pocket, “I want ’I love you’ on it,” and I went through the waistcoat pockets a third time.  “‘I—­er—­love you.’”

“Me?” said the shopman, surprised.

“I love you,” I repeated mechanically.  “I love you.  I love you, I—­Well, look here, perhaps I’d better go back and get the ring.”

On the next day I was there again; but there was a different man behind the counter.

“I want this ring engraved,” I said.

“Certainly.  What shall we put?”

I had felt the question coming.  I had a sort of instinct that he would ask me that.  But I couldn’t get the words out again.

“Well,” I hesitated, “I—­er—­well.”

“Ladies often like the date put in.  When is it to be?”

“When is what to be?”

“The wedding,” he smiled.

“It has been,” I said.  “It’s all over.  You’re too late for it.”

I gave myself up to thought.  At all costs I must be original.  There must be something on Celia’s wedding-ring that had never been in any other’s....

There was only one thing I could think of.

* * * * *

The engraved ring arrived as we were at tea a few days later, and I had a sudden overwhelming fear that Celia would not be pleased.  I saw that I must explain it to her.  After all, there was a distinguished precedent.

“Come into the bath-room a moment,” I said, and I led the way.

She followed, wondering.

“What is that?” I asked, pointing to a blue thing on the floor.

“The bath-mat,” she said, surprised.

“And what is written on it?”

“Why—­’bath-mat,’ of course.”

“Of course,” I said ... and I handed her the wedding-ring.

VI.  A FEW GUESTS

BAD LORD BLIGHT

(A Moral Story for the Middle-aged)

I

Seated in the well-appointed library of Blight Hall, John Blighter, Seventeenth Earl of Blight, bowed his head in his hands and gave himself up to despair.  The day of reckoning had come.