"Eden would have been all right," cried Ernest, "if only she had let him alone!"
Piers strode toward them, his hands clenched, but Meg interrupted with: "Everyone talks so selfishly! As though his side of the question was the only one. What about me? Put off with an old India shawl and a big gold watch and chain no one ever carries the like of now!"
Augusta cried, passionately: "My mother's watch was a valued possession to her! She thought you, as the only granddaughter, should have it, and those India shawls are priceless nowadays!"
"Yes! I've seen Boney make his bed on this one!"
Piers was trying to shoulder himself from Renny's restraining hand. "Do you expect me," he muttered, "to let them say such things about Pheasant? I'll murder someone before I've done!"
Renny said, with composure, though he was still white: "Don't be a fool! The old people are all wrought up. They don't know what they're saying. If you care a straw for me, Piers, hang on to yourself!"
Piers bit his lip and scowled down at his boots.
Meg's voice was heard again. "When I think of the lovely things she had! I could have borne her giving the ruby ring to Pheasant, if she'd treated me fairly afterward. But a watch and chain—and a shawl that Boney'd made a nest in!"
"Margaret!" thundered Augusta.
Meg's face was a mask of obstinacy. "What I want to know is who the ruby ring really belongs to!"
"Belonged to, you mean, before your grandmother gave it away," corrected Maurice.
"I think," said Ernest, "it was the one she intended for Alayne."
"As though Alayne needed one of my grandmother's rings!" Meg's mask of obstinacy was broken by temper.
Renny said, with a chest vibration in his voice: "Each grandson's wife is to have a piece of jewellery, or the grandson a piece for his prospective wife. As I under-
