I shut my ears to the voice, and went on quickly: 

“Before we say good-bye, I’ve something to show you—­something you’ll like very much.  Wait here till I get it from the next room.”

Marianne was tidying my dressing-room for the night, bustling here and there, a dear old, comfortable, dependable thing.  She was delighted with my success, which she knew all about, of course; but she was not in the least excited, because she had loyally expected me to succeed, and would have thought the sky must be about to fall if I had failed.  She was as placid as she was on other, less important nights, far more placid than she would have been if she had known that she was guarding not only my jewellery, but a famous diamond necklace, worth at least five hundred thousand francs.

There it was, under the lowest tray of my jewel box.  I had felt perfectly safe in leaving it there, for I knew that nothing on earth—­short of a bomb explosion—­could tempt the good creature out of my dressing-room in my absence, and that even if a bomb did explode, she would try to be blown up with my jewel box clutched in her hands.

Saying nothing to Marianne, who was brushing a little stage dust off my third act dress, with my back to her I took out tray after tray from the box (which always came with us to the theatre and went away again in my carriage) until the electric light over the dressing table set the diamonds on fire.

Really, I said to myself, they were wonderful stones.  I had no idea how magnificent they were.  Not that there were a great many of them.  The necklace was composed of a single row of diamonds, with six flat tassels depending from it.  But the smallest stones at the back, where the clasp came, were as large as my little finger nail, and the largest were almost the size of a filbert.  All were of perfect colour and fire, extraordinarily deep and faultlessly shaped, as well as flawless.  Besides, the necklace had a history which would have made it interesting even if it hadn’t been intrinsically of half its value.

With the first thrill of pleasure I had felt since I knew that the treaty had disappeared I lifted the beautiful diamonds from the box, and slipped them into a small embroidered bag of pink and silver brocade which lay on the table.  It was a foolish but pretty little bag, which a friend had made and sent to me at the theatre a few nights ago, and was intended to carry a purse and handkerchief.  But I had never used it yet.  Now it seemed a convenient receptacle for the necklace, and I suddenly planned out my way of giving it to Raoul.

At first, earlier in the evening, I had meant to put the diamonds in his hands and say, “See what I have for you!” But now I had changed my mind, because he must be induced to go away as quickly as possible—­quite, quite away from the theatre, so that there would be no danger of his seeing Count Godensky at the stage door.  I was not sorry that Raoul was jealous, because, as he said, his jealousy was a compliment to me; and it is possible only for a cold man never to be jealous of a woman in my profession, who lives in the eyes of the world.  But I did not want him to be jealous of the Russian; and he would be horribly jealous, if he thought that he had the least cause.