There seemed to be an almost universal gasp of astonishment. Page 216.
"We keep them like this instead of in coffers," the Duke explained, "so that they can be shown without being handled."
"Supposing you wanted to get at them?" some one asked.
"There is a secret spring," he replied, "which releases these windows. You should look at the diamonds in that Queen Anne tiara, Lady Mordaunt," he added, turning to one of his guests. "The greatest diamond expert in the world, who was here last year, declared that he had never seen stones to match those in his life."
We gazed, we admired, we marvelled. In a few minutes the show was over, the doors locked, the key back in its wonderful hiding place, and the Duke's coat once more hanging from his shapely shoulders.
"I don't wear this platinum affair except when I am down here," he told us. "The rest of the time I leave it at my banker's. Tell me what you are thinking about, Miss Mindel?" he asked, turning to her with a smile.
Rose answered him frankly.
"I was wondering why you wouldn't let Mr. Faraday come with us."
The Duke frowned slightly.
"Well," he admitted, "I suppose it was foolish of me. All the same, the man's performance took away my breath. Of course," he went on, "I know that it was all illusion, and yet it doesn't seem to me any more wonderful to think of his thrusting his hand through my plate-glass windows and helping himself to my pearls, than to perform some of the feats he achieved this evening. The guardianship of several million pounds' worth of family treasures," he concluded, with an apologetic smile, "sometimes tends to make one unreasonable."