It was strangely interesting to hear these things. Loree did not know why they should move her so profoundly, and become all mixed up with the sparkling joys of the flowers in her enchanted garden. Perhaps the fluting of Pan had something to do with it.

When they returned to the car, Mrs Cork had recovered her good humour.

Quelch proposed a drive to Alexandersfontein (a sort of Southern Coney Island) and dismissing the chauffeur, took the wheel himself. Loree had the sensation of tasting life very sweet between the lips as they flew along through the cooling air into the heart of a blazing sunset. She knew that the strangely attractive man beside her was more than a little in love with her--and when will such knowledge cease to exhilarate a woman's blood? The only crumpled rose-leaf in her happy cup was an accident that happened as they dismounted from the car for tea. Quelch stepped on her frock and tore it from its gathers, necessitating her retiral to a dressing-room and the a.s.sistance of a maid, who took some time to fix it up. Mrs Cork's temper appeared to be of uncertain quality and unable to bear strain of any kind, for she looked very sulky at being kept waiting for her tea, and all Loree's apologies (on her return) and Quelch's civilities, surmounted by a heavenly tea, could not disperse her gloom. She said that the drive had made her eyes ache, and the sight of strawberries and cream made her sick. For the homeward drive Loree offered her the front seat, but she preferred silence and solitude in the body of the car, and the others did not deny her. When two people are on the brink of an entrancing flirtation, they cannot truthfully "grieve as them that have no hope," if they are left to themselves. In the warm rushing darkness of the night no word was exchanged between Quelch and Loree, but they advanced quite a long way on the perilous path of forbidden primroses. Arrived at the hotel, Mrs Cork said abruptly:

"You won't see me again to-night. I've got one of my awful headaches and shall go straight to bed!"

They breathed sad sympathy over her, smiling in their hearts. It was plain to see that the poor woman was suffering. Her attractiveness had quite gone, and her skin taken a yellowish pallor with heavy lines about her eyes. Loree was really sorry, but the heart of youth is light, and the troubles of other people do not unduly depress it. Moreover, she was in the throes of the first interesting thing that had happened to her since she married Pat Temple a year ago. She was sure that she was very strong and clever and well able to look after herself, and keep Quelch where he ought to be kept--outside of Pat Temple's garden of happiness. But it was fascinating to philander over the gate, and would hurt no one _who ought not to be hurt_.

"I don't want to make him unhappy, of course," she murmured virtuously, as she hurried out of her afternoon things and splashed herself with cooling waters. "But if men will go looking for scalps, they must expect a few scars."

It was past the dinner-hour. She flung on the little black gown and fastened Pat's pearls in her ears and about her neck. They seemed extraordinary unimaginative ornaments, somehow--not a sparkle or glimmer about them anywhere. More virtuous indignation moved her--this time against the giver of the pearls.

"If I flirt a little it is his fault for leaving me behind in this dull place--while he is enjoying himself."

Even her own cheek blushed at this casuistry, and a photograph of Pat on the mantelpiece gave her a reproachful glance. She remembered that she had not written to him that day.

"I will after dinner," she murmured. "Not that he deserves it. If he really cared for me he would not neglect me in this manner."

Another blush brightened her cheek. But it rally served to enhance the violet of her eyes.

Needless to say, she did not write after dinner. It was so very pleasant sitting in the verandah, smelling the drenched roses out in the gloom of the garden and listening to Quelch's voice. He no longer talked about diamonds, but about life. Of its loneliness. Of its irony. Of chance that comes too late. Of being rich and going empty.

Of suffering thirst and knowing the torment of mirage. Of the desolation of being on the wrong side of the gate of the one "blue garden" in all the wide desert of the world. Among the things that she learned was that it is not right for any woman's hair to have the rich red browns of the back of an old violin--a priceless Stradivarius--and that when a man sees a certain plaintive _priez-pour-moi_ look in a woman's eyes, he is ready to throw his immortal soul under her feet.

She felt extremely elated when she went up to bed at somewhere about eleven o'clock. It had been a charming evening, and the morrow held a further prospect. Quelch was to fetch her in his racing car at five and take her to see the Rhodes Memorial.

Her garments of the afternoon still lay in confusion about the room.

The servants had turned down the bed and arranged the mosquito-net, but everything else was as she had left it. She began to pick up things and put them away, but her mind was preoccupied. She stopped to examine the colour of her hair in the gla.s.s as though she had never seen it before.

And she looked long at her eyes. Had they really a _priez-pour-moi_ expression? At last she hung up her gown and prepared leisurely for bed. Her gloves lay flung on the dressing-table, and she took them up and put them into a drawer. Then she stood still staring. Where the gloves had lain something glittered. Something was lying there like a fallen star.

At first she hardly dared touch it. But at length she lifted it tremulously and gazed into its scintillating heart. It was the lovely dog-rose diamond that had nestled in her palm that afternoon. The touch of it warmed her all through, then slowly froze her into fright. How had it come there? The only possible explanation seemed to be that, after playing with and handling the diamonds, this one had slipped into some fold of her clothes and been brought home by her. The alternative was that some one had brought it and placed it on her dressing-table.

But that seemed too fantastic. The one person connected in her mind with this stone was Quelch. Yet she had found him in the dining-room when she went down and had been with him ever since. Who on earth would have any object in leaving a valuable diamond on her dressing-table?

She _must_ have brought it herself. But how terrible! The watching detectives must know that it was missing. Even now she might be under suspicion of stealing it! A wild impulse came to her to fly and tell Quelch. But he had gone to bed, and she did not know where his room was. Besides, she realised in a moment that was an impossible idea.

Quelch was the last person she could go to. Mrs Cork, then? But her room was also unknown. And she was so bad-tempered and would be furious at being disturbed. It was late, too. Midnight. She had been dawdling and dreaming longer than she supposed. Impossible to do anything about it until morning. With the decision came relief. There was poignant pleasure in the thought that she could spend the night alone with the rose-coloured diamond!

For another hour or more she stood turning the smiling thing in her hand, twisting it, flashing it this way and that. It was the size of a good-shaped pea, only flatter and exquisitely cut. Its rays seemed to mesmerise her eyes and paralyse her will. At last she finished undressing and approached the bed. Kneeling down, she murmured her prayers as usual, but mechanically, her eyes fixed all the time on the heart of rose-pink fire lying before her. An unrequested phrase thrust itself into her mind:

Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

She could not remember where such an odd injunction came from. It sounded like the Bible and reminded her of her childhood, so she thrust it out of her mind again quickly. Neither the Bible nor her childhood harmonised with the rose-red diamond. She got into bed, taking the stone with her, and lay awake a long time watching it. At length, when her eyes grew heavy, she slid it under her pillow just beneath her head.

But even in her sleep her hand jealously guarded the treasure.

As soon as she woke, her first thought was how lovely it would look in the morning light. Eagerly she drew it forth and plunged her gaze once more into its mysterious depths. Hitherto, her happy custom had been to rise and seek the breakfast-table with healthy interest. But to-day she broke her habit and stayed long abed with her fascinating companion.

She felt no hunger or thirst but for its beauty. Besides, it was safer in her room. She had an idea that if she once opened her door, the delicious thing might be ravished from her grasp. Who knew? Perhaps a hateful detective waited in the corridor! A plan must be formulated by which she could thwart any evil-intentioned person and keep the diamond in her possession. After all, it was hers. Plainly it was hers. Was there not a sort of magic predestination about the whole affair? Quelch had said, when the diamond lay in her palm, that it seemed as if it wished to be there--as if it knew it had been sought and found _for her_. And lo!--she had found it. It had come to her--followed of its own accord! If that was not lawful possession, she would like to know what was. Surely a natural preference on the part of the diamond should rank higher than any mere stupid diamond law!

The question next arose as to where to keep it out of the range of vulgar and prying eyes yet in her close and constant company. The answer was:--a tiny bag to be slung round her neck and hidden in her bosom. Diligently she hunted for a sc.r.a.p of silk and a needle and cotton. Then as the air in her room was close, and the be-blinded balcony, which ran all round the square-built hotel, seemed steeped in silence and solitude, she stepped out of the French window and seated herself in a basket chair. The diamond lay in her lap and blinked at her lazily while she sewed. She felt like a happy young mother making a dainty garment for her baby.

So peaceful and preoccupied was she that Mrs Cork, coming suddenly round a corner, was upon her before she was aware. She caught the treasure up in her clenched hand, but not before the shrewd eye of the other had spied it out.

"But how lovely!" she cried. "What is it?"

"Only a little pink topaz of mine," said Loree calmly, and held it fast and hidden. But her heart beat wildly and her cheek was pinker than any topaz ever found on an island in the Red Sea.

"Ah," said Valeria Cork, "I've never seen a pink topaz close enough to really examine it."

This was a plain hint, but Loree sewed furiously, her left hand clutching both stone and silk.

"And what is the little bag for?"

Without hesitation Loree answered firmly.

"To wear a piece of camphor in round my neck."

"But there is no epidemic about, is there?"

"No: it's just a superst.i.tion of mine."

Brusquely she rose, stuffing sewing and stone into her pocket. She glanced at her inquisitor coldly. We usually dislike people to whom we are obliged to lie.

"How dreadfully ill you look!" she remarked, with an accent on the "dreadfully." A faint colour came into the elder woman's cheek. She had looked upon the face of forty, and to-day the fact was painfully revealed. The contrast between herself and the girl in all the bloom and heyday of youth was striking.

"Bad heads take time to get over," she said curtly, "and it is stuffy in one's room."

"Ah yes. Where is your room?" asked Loree eagerly. Anything to get away from the subject of topazes and camphor-bags.

"On the hot side of the hotel," said Mrs Cork dryly. "We can't all afford the best side, like you."

This was the first time Loree had heard of a best or worst side but not the first time it had been brought home to her that, where she was concerned, Pat never considered the best too good.

"I should have come round to you last night if I had known where your room was," she said thoughtlessly.

Valeria Cork looked surprised.

"Why? Did you need anything?"

"Only to borrow an aspirin tablet," said Loree, looking sweet and pure and good, and as though she had never told a lie in her life. And, in fact, until this morning, lying had not been among her accomplishments.

"You had better come round now; then you will know where I am if you want me any time," suggested the other, and they strolled idly round the balcony. There was no one about except a negro flicking dust from chairs and glancing with sleepy black eyes into the open bedrooms as he pa.s.sed.

Mrs Cork's room was indeed tiny, and not to be compared with Loree's for comfort. She proffered cigarettes and gave her visitor the most comfortable chair. There were beautiful ivory articles on the dressing-table, but they were yellow from use and the monograms faded.

The silk wrapper she was wearing had a faded loveliness, too. All her possessions wore an air of yesterday, as of things bought in prosperity and never renewed. The only up-to-date object was a photograph of a hopeful-looking boy in his teens. On inquiry, Loree discovered that this was her only son, and was vaguely surprised to hear the name of the public school he was at--one of the most expensive in England. He had his mother's handsome eyes, but not their haggard glance.

The two women gossiped awhile, then Loree rose, saying she must dress for luncheon. Mrs Cork announced her intentions of lying down again, as her headache was returning.

In her bedroom, Loree hastened to finish the little bag and place her treasure in it. When it lay in her warm bosom, she felt excited yet curiously content. The p.r.i.c.kle of it against her skin was as pleasing to her as the rasp of his hair shirt to the saintly hermit. She went down to lunch in a kind of dream of joy. Quelch was not there. He always lunched at his club. There were but few people about, and those casual and uninteresting. No one looked like a detective. Loree felt secure, but not calm. Her feverish desire was to be alone with her twinkling treasure once more, and she wasted no time in getting back to her room.

Late in the afternoon she dressed hurriedly in a delightful frock of transparent blue muslin the colour of asphodels, and prepared for her drive with Quelch. When she glanced into the mirror just before leaving, she saw that, like Bathsheba, she was fair to look upon. But it was a new and glittering beauty that she had. Her cheek glowed; her eyes burned. Pat Temple would hardly have known his wife.

Quelch's eyes told her even more than the mirror. As she came down the main stairway, she saw him standing in the hall, reading a letter which had just been handed to him from the office. Its perusal seemed to afford him pleasure, but nothing like the unfeigned gladness with which he looked up at her. Neither he nor any one else could have guessed from outward and visible signs that the sweet vision in diaphanous draperies of Madonna blue carried a canker at her heart--a canker in a little silk bag.