The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy

Anything you particularly want to see? Well is there?” he said.
    No reply.
    We started making our way out.
    “Wait a sec.” I stopped dead in my tracks. Honey’s engagement ring was sparkling up at me from a case of jewels. I went over and examined it closely. Yes, it was Honey’s ring. Or rather its exact duplicate, even to size. I stared at it hard. Even looking at the likeness I could feel the same rage and hatred I felt towards that other ring. How ugly it was! An innocent object lying innocently in its velvet case harming no one. But it wasn’t innocent. It was evil. It was a thing of evil. It stank of corruption, sorrow, and death. The sight of it released in me the same ruthless determination to get rid of it, get it out of my sight for ever, revived in me the same scheming plots and plans to remove it from her, from me, for ever at all costs—get
him
away from her even if it meant taking him away from her myself. Seeing it there shining with evil, I felt justified; reassured that my motives, whatever they looked like from the outside, had been pure. I had been a loyal friend to Honey, had not wanted to see her hurt, had wanted only her happiness. My thoughts took a sudden plunge and I remembered startlingly another diamond ring, of many, many years before, how old was I—eleven? The one my father gave me to celebrate making his first big pile. I’d worn it to the new snobby school I was attending in New York and all the children had taunted me about it. I’d thrown it away, secretly, out of the window, thrown it away in rage and shame: “But Poppie, I lost it I tell you. I don’t
know
where.” I had to smile. What children will do! And yet I’d been right. I’d known it even then. Diamonds stank of corruption. Money, money, money...corruption, sorrow, death. The refrain rang in my head.
    “Georgian paste,” I heard C. D. saying.
    I looked at him blankly.
    “Eighteenth-century Georgian paste. All the jewellery in these cases.”
    “You mean they’re not real?” Odd, this feeling of relief.
    “Another gap in your education. You have the makings of a very poor gold-digger though I expect the design and quality of the workmanship make them almost as expensive as the real thing.”
    “I’m glad they’re not real. I hate diamonds. That ring, there, it’s like the one my ex-fiancé gave me. I can’t stand the sight of it.”
    “It’s quite understandable,” he said gently, guiding me away from the case. “By the way, what did you do with the ring if you don’t mind my asking?”
    “I sent it back.” That was true. Honey had. What would
I
have done I wondered? Hocked it probably.
    “It was the only honourable thing to do,” he said. I dropped my eyes guiltily in a way which he misread for sorrow. “In fact you deserve a reward. Look at this spray.” He pointed to a beautiful brooch and made them take it out for us. He held it up to my shoulder. “Pin it on. Here—look at yourself in the glass.” He stood back studying me. “Remarkable,” he said. “Extraordinary, most extraordinary,” he said enthusiastically. “It quite transforms you. What is it? That clean cut, austere, almost prim American armour seems to have a chink in it. The spray brings it out. Brings out the ‘other you’ as the women’s magazines have it. Gives you an air of naughtiness somehow. Yes. Gives you—oh dear, what is the phrase I want? The air of a rich man’s darling.”
    I wheeled around at his words to look at myself in the mirror and to my unutterable relief found it was my grown self confronting me and not, as I had feared, a tear-stained child (the impression was so swift it melted even as it formed); and then I snapped out of it entirely and began admiring myself, fingering the spray shimmering on my lapel, playing with its little leaves quivering each on tiny separate springs. I noticed with pleasure how my eyes reflected its soft brilliance and seemed to make them dazzle and glow and for the