The Rainbow

"Are you goin' to have it then?" he asked.

"I'd rather have it than Annabel," she said, decisively.

"An' I'd rather have it than Gladys Em'ler," he replied.

There was a silence, Ursula looked up.

"Will you really call her Ursula?" she asked.

"Ursula Ruth," replied the man, laughing vainly, as pleased

as if he had found something.

It was now Ursula's turn to be confused.

"It does sound awfully nice," she said. "I must give

her something. And I haven't got anything at all."

She stood in her white dress, wondering, down there in the

barge. The lean man sitting near to her watched her as if she

were a strange being, as if she lit up his face. His eyes smiled

on her, boldly, and yet with exceeding admiration

underneath.

"Could I give her my necklace?" she said.

It was the little necklace made of pieces of amethyst and

topaz and pearl and crystal, strung at intervals on a little

golden chain, which her Uncle Tom had given her. She was very

fond of it. She looked at it lovingly, when she had taken it

from her neck.

"Is it valuable?" the man asked her, curiously.

"I think so," she replied.

"The stones and pearl are real; it is worth three or four

pounds," said Skrebensky from the wharf above. Ursula could tell

he disapproved of her.

"I must give it to your baby--may I?" she said to

the bargee.

He flushed, and looked away into the evening.

"Nay," he said, "it's not for me to say."

"What would your father and mother say?" cried the woman

curiously, from the door.

"It is my own," said Ursula, and she dangled the little

glittering string before the baby. The infant spread its little

fingers. But it could not grasp. Ursula closed the tiny hand

over the jewel. The baby waved the bright ends of the string.

Ursula had given her necklace away. She felt sad. But she did

not want it back.

The jewel swung from the baby's hand and fell in a little

heap on the coal-dusty bottom of the barge. The man groped for

it, with a kind of careful reverence. Ursula noticed the

coarsened, blunted fingers groping at the little jewelled heap.

The skin was red on the back of the hand, the fair hairs

glistened stiffly. It was a thin, sinewy, capable hand

nevertheless, and Ursula liked it. He took up the necklace

carefully, and blew the coal-dust from it, as it lay in the

hollow of his hand. He seemed still and attentive. He held out

his hand with the necklace shining small in its hard, black

hollow.

"Take it back," he said.

Ursula hardened with a kind of radiance.

"No," she said. "It belongs to little Ursula."

And she went to the infant and fastened the necklace round

its warm, soft, weak little neck.