The two men were quite unconstrained for the moment in the natural interest of a subject foreign to their difficult mutual relations. Randal Ducie’s head was thrown up, his eyes glowed; he was looking at the horse with a sort of glad admiration—an expression which Paula well remembered. Floyd-Rosney’s eyes narrowed as they scanned successively the points of the fine animal, his own face calm, patronizing, approving. Neither of them, for the moment, was thinking of her. She had followed them out upon the wide stone portico and stood in the sun, her head tilted a trifle that her broad hat of taupe velvet might shade her eyes. She brought herself potently into the foreground, seizing the fact that Randal was unincumbered with baggage of any sort.
“Where is the treasure trove?” she cried. “Surely you are not going to leave it in the ruins of this old mansion!”
Her husband flashed at her a glance of reproof which would once have silenced her, abashed to the ground. Now she repeated her words, wondering to feel so composed, so possessed of all her faculties. Without a conscious effort of observation the details of the scene were registered in her mind unbefogged by her wonted bewilderment in her husband’s disapproval. She even noticed the groom who had driven the vehicle back from the livery stable—no colored servant, but a carrot-headed youth, with jockey boots, riding breeches, a long freckled face, and small red-lidded eyes, very close together, gazing at Ducie with a keen intentness as she asked the question. The fame of the discovery must have been bruited abroad already, and she vaguely wondered at this, for, as yet, no one on land knew the facts, except the alienist and his party, safely housed at the sanatorium.
“The chest of valuables found here last night?” replied Ducie. “Why, I haven’t it. My brother took it on the boat in his suitcase, and, before nightfall, it will be in one of the banks in Vicksburg.”
Floyd-Rosney, thrown out of all his reckonings by the unaccountable behavior of his wife, spoke at random, more to obviate its effects than with any valid intendment.
“I saw the box opened,” he said; “only family jewels and a lot of gold coin and papers, but I should think, from the pretensions of this place, there must have been elaborate table services of silver, perhaps of gold plate. Were any such appurtenances hidden, do you know, and recovered?”
Ducie shook his head. “I know nothing of such ware. It may be, or it may not be here. The absence of the papers brought out the story of the hiding of the family diamonds, else the box would have remained in the capital of the pilaster, where my uncle left it, till the crack of doom.”
Paula never understood the impulse that possessed her. Boldly, in the presence of her husband, she took from her dainty mesh bag a small key set with rubies and one large diamond.
“Your brother carelessly left one of the Ducie jewels on the table and I picked it up. I am so glad I remembered to restore it to you. It should have been in your possession long ago.”
Floyd-Rosney was watching her like a hawk, and she began to quail before his eyes. Oh, why had she not remembered that he was a connoisseur in bijouterie and bric-à-brac of many sorts and would detect instantly, at a glance, the modern fashion and comparatively slight value of the trinket. More than all, why had she not reckoned on the fact that Randal Ducie was no actor. Who could fail to interpret the surprised recognition in his eyes, his gentle upbraiding look before the associations thus ruthlessly summoned? It was as if some magic had materialized all the tender poignancy of first love, all his winged hopes, all the heartbreak of a cruel disappointment crystallized in this scintillating bauble in his hand. He glanced from it to her, then back at the flashing stones, red as his heart’s blood. He looked so wounded, so passive, as if content to succumb to a blow which he was too generous, too magnanimous to return in kind.