‘Everything will be quite all right,’ she said, ‘if you do as I tell you. First of all, you’d better go round to Cartier this afternoon and buy her a lovely ring and some other little present as well, one of those diamond bracelets for instance. I should give her the bracelet when you arrive, but keep the ring for a day or two to give her when she has been really nice to you – it will seem more romantic like that. Be very sweet and sympathetic, of course, but perfectly firm, make her feel she is definitely engaged to you; and if by any chance she should mention Paul, take up the attitude of being surprised and pained but ready to forgive just this once. I should try to keep off the subject for as long as you can, though. I think you will find that, what with the boredom of her present existence and her fear of you (she regards you with a good deal of wholesome awe, you know), she will be beside you on the altar steps in no time. That’s what you really do want, I suppose?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Michael, adding uncertainly: ‘Poor child, I only hope I shall be able to make her happy. You know, Amabelle, that it is you who will always be the love of my life, don’t you?’
‘Nonsense, my dear, of course you’ll make her happy. You two are cut out for each other, obviously. As for Paul, I’m very fond of him myself, but all the same I feel perfectly certain that she would be wretched with him; he has far too weak a character to marry a girl of her sort. He needs something really hard-boiled. Why, at this very moment he is having an affair with that awful Marcella Bracket, whom he actually dislikes – I’ve no patience with him sometimes, I must say.’
Michael looked very much relieved. ‘Then he’s not in love with Philadelphia at all?’
‘I tell you the whole thing is nonsense from beginning to end, and it’s the greatest mercy that you are about again and can put a stop to it. All the same, I believe that in his queer way he does love Philadelphia, only he hasn’t the strength of mind to get rid of the Bracket. Now, Michael, dear, you must be off. My last words to you are be firm and don’t forget the diamond bracelet. It ought to work wonders for you.’
Michael followed this advice to the letter. Immediately on leaving Portman Square, he went to Cartier, where he bought a large and beautiful emerald ring and a diamond bracelet of magnificent proportions. With these in his pocket he caught the 4.45 from Paddington, arriving at Compton Bobbin just in time to dress for dinner.
He was met by his Aunt Gloria with the news that Philadelphia had gone to bed with a headache.
‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I think I will go up and see her for a moment,’ and before Lady Bobbin, gratified but somewhat scandalized at such haste, had time to utter a half-hearted protest, he had run up the stairs and was knocking at Philadelphia’s bedroom door.
It would be idle to pretend that Philadelphia was not pleased to see him. The boredom and depression of the last few weeks had been such that she was ready to welcome with delight any new face, anybody from the outer world. With the greatest reluctance she had forced herself to avoid him by pretending to be ill, feeling in some obscure way that loyalty to Paul demanded this gesture, and when Michael came up to see her immediately on his arrival she was more touched and pleased than she cared to admit.
He sat on the edge of her bed and talked of this and that, cheerfully and without embarrassment, looking most attractively pale and thin from his recent illness. Presently, having made no mention whatever of an engagement, he said: ‘Now I must have my bath, or I shall be late for Aunt Gloria, and you ought to go to sleep if you’re not very well, so I will say good night. But first of all put out your hand and shut your eyes, darling.’ Philadelphia did so, and he snapped the diamond bracelet on to her wrist.
The diamond is a stone possessed for the female mind, however unsophisticated, of curious psychological attributes. Philadelphia looked at the sparkling flowers on her wrist and forgot that she had been about to announce her betrothal to another. She flung her arms round Michael’s neck in an access of childlike pleasure and cried: ‘Oh, the lovely bracelet. Thank you, thank you, darling Michael. You are sweet to me.’
Amabelle’s love potion had done its work for the moment. Its effect, however, wore off sadly during the night, and the next morning, very early, at about six o’clock, Philadelphia woke up tormented with agonies of self-reproach.
‘Paul, my darling, darling Paul,’ she wept into her pillow. ‘I won’t lose you; they shan’t bribe me like this. I will never give you up, never, as long as I live.’ She flung the offending bracelet, which gleamed beneath her bedside lamp, into the farthest corner of the room, sobbing bitterly. After a while she pulled herself together and began to consider her position. The idea had come to her that if she should stay any longer at Compton Bobbin now that Michael had arrived, she would inevitably find herself engaged to him. She knew that she was too weak to offer, alone
