She gazed more sadly than curiously at the bauble Mrs. Witherbee dropped into her palm.
"Notice the carving," urged Mrs. Witherbee. "Did you ever see anything so odd?"
"It's very odd," assented the owner dully.
"And not a jewel in it!"
"Not a jewel," echoed Miss Chalmers, shaking her head.
"Gertrude and I have been wondering where in the world it was purchased. We both want one. But there isn't the sign of a maker's mark; it doesn't even say how many carats."
The artistic soul of Miss Chalmers was in revolt. Maker! Carats! There was something shockingly coarse in the suggestion. How little they understood! Nobody in the whole world knew the name of the artisan who fashioned it, nor ever would know. He went to his peace five thousand years ago. There were no carats in those days; not for this workman. For he made the thing for a princess, and he made it of pure gold.
Nowhere, unless in some undiscovered tomb in Egypt, was there anywhere its mate. Weighed in the scales of trade, it might have brought fifty dollars as metal. To Miss Chalmers it was a thing beyond price.
She knew little of its history save this: Only two women in the world had worn it. One was a princess, daughter of some forgotten Pharaoh. It was upon her wrist when they opened the tomb. The other woman was Rosalind Chalmers.
Just how Reginald Williams came into possession of it Miss Chalmers never knew, but he had brought it to America for her. And she had worn it with a pleasant sense of satisfaction in the fact that the bracelet had merely been transferred from the arm of a dead princess to a living one. Miss Chalmers, rightly enough, had an excellent opinion of herself.