“Uncle Paul!” Leta was looking her sweetest when she tripped into my room next morning.  “I’ve news for you.  She,” pointing a delicate forefinger in the direction of the corridor, “is going!  Her Bokums have reached Paris at last, and sent for her to join them at the Grand Hotel.”

I was thunderstruck.  The longed-for deliverance had but come to remove hopelessly and forever out of my reach Lady Carwitchet and the great Valdez sapphire.

“Why, aren’t you overjoyed?  I am.  We are going to celebrate the event by a dinner party.  Tom’s hospitable soul is vexed by the lack of entertainment we had provided her.  We must ask the Brownleys some day or other, and they will be delighted to meet anything in the way of a ladyship, or such smart folks as the Duberly-Parkers.  Then we may as well have the Blomfields, and air that awful modern Sevres dessert service she gave us when we were married.”  I had no objection to make, and she went on, rubbing her soft cheek against my shoulder like the purring little cat she was:  “Now I want you to do something to please me—­and Mrs. Blomfield.  She has set her heart on seeing your rubies, and though I know you hate her about as much as you do that Sevres china—­”

“What!  Wear my rubies with that!  I won’t.  I’ll tell you what I will do, though.  I’ve got some carbuncles as big as prize gooseberries, a whole set.  Then you have only to put those Bohemian glass vases and candelabra on the table, and let your gardener do his worst with his great forced, scentless, vulgar blooms, and we shall all be in keeping.”  Leta pouted.  An idea struck me.  “Or I’ll do as you wish, on one condition.  You get Lady Carwitchet to wear her big sapphire, and don’t tell her I wish it.”

I lived through the next few days as one in some evil dream.  The sapphires, like twin specters, haunted me day and night.  Was ever man so tantalized?  To hold the shadow and see the substance dangled temptingly within reach.  The bishop made no sign of ridding me of my unwelcome charge, and the thought of what might happen in a case of burglary—­fire—­earthquake—­made me start and tremble at all sorts of inopportune moments.

I kept faith with Leta, and reluctantly produced my beautiful rubies on the night of her dinner party.  Emerging from my room I came full upon Lady Carwitchet in the corridor.  She was dressed for dinner, and at her throat I caught the blue gleam of the great sapphire.  Leta had kept faith with me.  I don’t know what I stammered in reply to her ladyship’s remarks; my whole soul was absorbed in the contemplation of the intoxicating loveliness of the gem. That a Palais Royal deception!  Incredible!  My fingers twitched, my breath came short and fierce with the lust of possession.  She must have seen the covetous glare in my eyes.  A look of gratified spiteful complacency overspread her features, as she swept on ahead and descended the stairs before me.  I followed her to the drawing-room door.  She stopped suddenly, and murmuring something unintelligible hurried back again.