“Yes.  But you oughtn’t to have all—­all this stuff about.  No one could be held responsible——­”

“What does it matter?  If someone take it—­someone ’ave it.  It won’t worry me.  ’Ere, I tell you something—­a story, hein, to amuse you?  You remember our leetle dinner and ’ow I would not tell about ze Grand Duke and ze black opal?  Well, I tell you now.  It don’t matter any more.”

“No.  You’re doing yourself harm.  You ought to sleep.”

“I don’t want to—­I can’t.  It is ’orrible to lie awake in ze dark and——­ And you, too, Monsieur Robert, you don’t feel you sleep much to-night, hein?”

“No.”

“Alors—­’ere we are—­two poor fellows shipwrecked—­we make a leetle feast together—­a feast of good stories.  You say you don’t like me ver’ much.  But that is ridicule now.  One only ’ates when one is afraid, and you aren’t afraid any more of poor Gyp.”

“Was I ever?” he demanded.

“A leetle—­per’aps?  You think to yourself:  ’If I love ‘er——!’ Bah, that is all finished.  Come, I tell you my funny story.”

He had laughed.  He was incredulous of himself.  He sat on the edge of her bed listening to her whisper, a tortured whisper which she made supremely funny—­a mock-conspirator’s whisper which drew them close to one another in an outrageous intimacy.

“At any rate you had made a good enemy that time,” he said.

She panted.

“Ah no—­no.  ’E ’ave a fine sense of humour, Monsieur ze Grand Duke.  ’E laugh too.  ‘E say—­’Gyp—­you are ze ver’ devil ‘erself!’ ’Ere, but this ruby—­I don’t care much for rubies—­but this one ’ave a real fine story.”

And so one by one the stones were taken up and held a moment, some to be discarded with a name or a forgetful shrug, and some to linger a while longer whilst she recalled their little ribald histories.  And it seemed to Robert Stonehouse that gradually the room filled with invisible personages who, as the jewels dropped from her waxen fingers into the gaping box, bowed to her and took their leave.  And at last they were all gone but one.  He seemed to hear them, their footsteps receding faintly along the corridors.

She held an unset pearl in her hand.

“This one ‘ave a ver’ nice leetle story.  A brigand give it me when ’e ’old up ze train between Mexico City and ze coast.  A fine fellow—­with a sombrero and a manner!” (She looked past Stonehouse, smiling, as though she too saw the shadow twirling its black moustache and staring back at her with gallant admiration.) “And brave too, nombre de Dios!  And ’e bow and say:  ’One does not take ransom from Mademoiselle Labelle.  One pays tribute.’  And ’e give me this to remember ’im by—­as I give it you, Monsieur Robert.”

He stood up sharply.

“No—­I—­I don’t care for that kind of thing.”

“For your wife, then!”

“I am not married.”