A man he had met at the Antlers entered the smoking room and tried to talk to him. Conover’s answers were so vague and disjointed that the other soon gave over the attempt. A fellow railroad-magnate from a camp near the lake glanced in at the door and nodded affably to the rising power in the provincial railroad world. Conover did not so much as see the greeting. He was trying once more, with shut eyes, to conjure up Desirée’s face.
He stopped over a train, in New York, next morning; took a cab to the store of a famous Fifth Avenue jeweler and demanded to see an assortment of engagement rings. The clerk laid on a velvet cushion half a dozen diamond solitaires averaging in size from one to two karats and variously set. Caleb waved the collection aside, after a single glance.
“I want the biggest, best diamond ring you got in the place,” he demanded.
A second, far more garish array was produced. Caleb chose from it a diamond of the size of his thumb-nail, looked it over critically and said:
“This’ll do, I guess. Biggest you’ve got? How much?”
At the astounding price named he merely smiled, and drew out his check book.
“That ought to tickle her fancy,” he mused. “Ain’t a di’mond in Granite as big.”
“What size, sir?” asked the clerk.
“Why, that’s the one I’m takin’. That size,” replied Conover, perplexed.
The clerk explained.