“One stone is missing.”
“Do you grieve for it?”
“How can I grieve?”
“They had disarranged the centre setting,” she replied, “and we were unacquainted with its previous shape, so we kept the stone apart. Here, you will do it best yourself.”
She handed over to me the central opal—the missing stone.
“Nay,” said I, “you will please me best by keeping it. It is not much, but if you will accept it my happiness will be complete.”
She gazed at me with that curious, unfathomable light I had sometimes seen shining in Vestné’s eyes when in a gentler mood.
“Are you willing to sacrifice so fine a stone?” she queried.
“If you put it in that light, you do me an honour of which I am unworthy. Take it as a gift, if you will be so kind, and do not mar its beauty with the shade of sacrifice.”
“But if I take it the after-events may be somewhat awkward,” she observed curiously.