Excurse

His face flickered with bored irritation. He shrugged his shoulders
slightly.

'I wanted to,' he said, coolly.

'But why? Why should you?' 'Am I called on to find reasons?' he asked.

There was a silence, whilst she examined the rings that had been
screwed up in the paper.

'I think they are BEAUTIFUL,' she said, 'especially this. This is
wonderful-' It was a round opal, red and fiery, set in a circle of tiny rubies.

'You like that best?' he said.

'I think I do.' 'I like the sapphire,' he said.

'This?' It was a rose-shaped, beautiful sapphire, with small brilliants.

'Yes,' she said, 'it is lovely.' She held it in the light. 'Yes,
perhaps it IS the best-' 'The blue-' he said.

'Yes, wonderful-' He suddenly swung the car out of the way of a farm-cart. It tilted on
the bank. He was a careless driver, yet very quick. But Ursula was
frightened. There was always that something regardless in him which
terrified her. She suddenly felt he might kill her, by making some
dreadful accident with the motor-car. For a moment she was stony with
fear.

'Isn't it rather dangerous, the way you drive?' she asked him.

'No, it isn't dangerous,' he said. And then, after a pause: 'Don't you
like the yellow ring at all?' It was a squarish topaz set in a frame of steel, or some other similar
mineral, finely wrought.