After a moment she looked out again.
“I don’t trust you, Philip,” she said.
“These packages have odd shapes.
I know they are going to bite.”
For answer I began to climb up the creeper wire, hand over hand, until I reached her window.
“Be careful,” she called, “you will fall and break your neck.”
In a moment I was inside the room, one leg upon the floor, the other on the sill.
“Why is your head so wet?” she said.
“It is not raining.”
“I’ve been swimming,” I answered.
“I told you I would do so.
Now, open up the packages, or shall I do it for you?”
One candle was burning in the room.
She stood with bare feet upon the floor and shivered.
“For heaven’s sake,” I said, “put something round you.”
I seized the coverlet from the bed and threw it about her, then lifted her and put her among her blankets.
“I think,” she said, “that you have gone raving mad.”
“Not mad,” I said, “it’s only that I have become, at this minute, twenty-five.
Listen.”
I held up my hand.
The clock struck midnight.
I put my hand into my pocket.
“This,” I said, laying the document upon the table, by the candlestick, “you can read at your leisure. But the rest I want to give you now.”
I emptied the packages upon the bed and cast the wicker basket on the floor. I tore away the paper, scattering the boxes, flinging the soft wrappings anywhere.
Out fell the ruby headpiece and the ring. Out came the sapphires and the emeralds. Here were the pearl collar and the bracelets, all tumbling in mad confusion on the sheets.
“This,” I said, “is yours. And this, and this…” And in an ecstasy of folly I heaped them all upon her, pressing them on her hands, her arms, her person.
“Philip,” she cried, “you are out of your mind, what have you done?”
I did not answer.
I took the collar, and put it about her neck.
“I’m twenty-five,” I said; “you heard the clock strike twelve.
Nothing matters anymore.
All this for you.
If I possessed the world, you should have it also.”
I have never seen eyes more bewildered or amazed.
She looked up at me, and down to the scattered necklaces and bracelets and back to me again, and then, I think because I was laughing, she put her arms suddenly about me and was laughing too.
We held one another, and it was as though she caught my madness, shared my folly, and all the wild delight of lunacy belonged to both of us.
“Is this,” she said, “what you have been planning all these weeks?”
“Yes,” I said, “they should have come with your breakfast.
But like the boys and the case of pipes, I could not wait.”
“And I have nothing for you,” she said, “but a gold pin for your cravat.
Your birthday, and you shame me.
Is there nothing else you want?
Tell me, and you shall have it.
Anything you ask.”
I looked down at her, with all the rubies and the emeralds spread about her, and the pearl collar around her neck, and all of a sudden I was serious and remembered what the collar meant.
“One thing, yes,” I said, “but it isn’t any use my asking it.”
“Why not?” she said.
“Because,” I answered, “you would box my ears, and send me straight to bed.”
She stared up at me, touching my cheek with her hand.
“Tell me,” she said.