'Do you mean the trouble you were in last spring?'
'N—no—not that, though it wasn't as funny as a Sunday School treat while it lasted, and I was thankful when it was through. It's another matter altogether that I'm cheerful about—besides seeing you, my dear. I've done it, Maud. I've done it at last.'
'What?'
'I've sold my interest in the Trust. It won't be made known for some time, so don't talk about it, please. But it's settled and done, and I've got the money.'
'You have sold the Nickel Trust?'
Lady Maud's lips remained parted in surprise.
'And I've bought you a little present with the proceeds,' he answered, putting his large thumb and finger into the pocket of his white waistcoat. 'It's only a funny little bit of glass I picked up,' he continued, producing a small twist of stiff writing-paper. 'You needn't think it's so very fine! But it's a pretty colour, and when you're out of mourning I daresay you'll make a hat-pin of it. I like handsome hat-pins myself, you know.'
He had untwisted the paper while speaking, it lay open in the palm of his hand, and Lady Maud saw a stone of the size of an ordinary hazel-nut, very perfectly cut, and of that wonderful transparent red colour which is known as 'pigeon's blood,' and which it is almost impossible to describe. Sunlight shining through Persian rose-leaf sherbet upon white silk makes a little patch of colour that is perhaps more like it than any other shade of red, but not many Europeans have ever [{55}] seen that, and it is a good deal easier to go and look at a pigeon's blood ruby in a jeweller's window.
'What a beautiful colour!' exclaimed Lady Maud innocently, after a moment. 'I didn't know they imitated rubies so well, though, of course, I know nothing about it. If it were not an impossibility, I should take it for a real one.'
'So should I,' assented Mr. Van Torp quietly. 'It'll make a pretty hat-pin anyway. Shall I have it mounted for you?'