“On the desk between the two men lay a fine opal—this one,” said Hayden, touching the more brilliant of the two stones. “The younger man was talking eagerly, fingering the gem lightly as he spoke. I inferred that he was offering to sell or pawn it.
“The proprietor, seeing that I waited, apparently cut the young man short. He started, and caught up the stone. ‘I’ll give you—’ I heard the other say, but the young man shook his head, and departed abruptly. I found nothing that I wanted in the place, and soon passed out.
“In front of a shop-window a little farther down the street stood the other man, looking in listlessly with eyes that evidently saw nothing. As I came by he turned and looked into my face. His eyes fixed me as the Ancient Mariner’s did the Wedding Guest. It was an appealing yet commanding look, and I—I felt constrained to stop. I couldn’t help it, you know. Even at my age one is not beyond feeling the force of an imperious attraction, and when you are past sixty you ought to be thankful on your knees for any emotion that is imperative in its nature. So I stopped beside him. I said: ‘It is a fine stone you were showing that man. I have a great fondness for opals. May I ask if you were offering it for sale?’
“He continued to look at me, inspecting me calmly, with a fastidious expression. Upon my word, I felt singularly honored when, at the end of a minute or two, he said: ‘I should like to show it to you. If you will come to my room with me, you may see that, and another;’ and he turned and led the way, I following quite humbly and gladly, though surprised at myself.
“The room, somewhat to my astonishment, proved to be a large apartment—a front room high up in one of the best hotels. There were a good many things lying about which obviously were not hotel furnishings, and the walls, the bed, and even the floor were covered with a litter of water-color sketches. Those that I could see were admirable, being chiefly impressions of delicate and fleeting atmospheric effects.
“I took the chair he offered. He stood, still looking at me, apparently not in haste to show me the opals. I looked about the room.
“‘You are an artist?’ I said.
“‘Oh, I used to be, when I was alive,’ he answered, drearily. ‘I am nothing now.’ And then turning away he fetched a little leather case, and placed the two opals on the table before me.
“‘This is the one I have always worn,’ he said, indicating the more brilliant. ‘That chillier one I gave once to the woman whom I loved. It was more vivid then. They are strange stones—strange stones.’
“He said nothing more, and I sat in perfect silence, only dreading that he should not speak again. I am not making you understand how he impressed me. In the delicate, hopeless patience of his face, in the refined, uninsistent accents of his voice, there was somehow struck a note of self-abnegation, of aloofness from the world, pathetic in any one so young.