He was waiting placidly for them in the shade of the dark trees of Hauteville, when they came panting up the steep way, flushed with victory and the joys of purchase after long abstinence.
"Well, has the proprietor of that big shop retired with a competence?" he asked, as he threw away the end of his cigar.
"Can you lend us our boat-fares home?" gasped Miss Penny.
"So bad as all that? I can't say yet. I've not begun my own purchases. We'll see when I'm through. If I'm cleaned out too we'll offer to work our passages."
"You can pawn your watch. Meg and I haven't got one between us. We left them at home on purpose."
"Thoughtful of you. Now let us into the treasure-house."
They enjoyed the wonders of Hauteville immensely,—objectively, the wonderful carved work and the tapestries, the china and the furniture,—the odd little bedroom with the bed on the floor, so that the Master could roll out to his work at any moment of inspiration, and the huge balconies, and the glass eyrie on the roof whence he surveyed his wide horizons, and where, above the world, he worked;—and subjectively, the whole quaint flavour and austere literary atmosphere of the place.
"No wonder he produced masterpieces," said Graeme, delighting in it all. "The view alone is an inspiration."
Then he took them up to Old Government House for lunch and a rest in the garden, and then away to the Arcade to the jeweller's shop, which proved adequate to all his demands;—for Margaret, a half-hoop of diamonds which the jeweller, with an air of sincerity, assured them were as fine stones as he had ever seen in the course of a long and prosperous career. Which ring Margaret would thenceforth value before all her others, though in the simple matter of intrinsic worth her jewel-case could beat it hollow.—And a plain gold circlet which, when she got it, would be more precious to her than all the rest put together.—And for Miss Penny, in spite of her protestations, a handsome signet ring which, when cornered, she chose in preference to a more feminine jewel, and which was left to be engraved with her family crest and motto.
"I have never adopted the habit of rings," she said, as they drifted towards the ice-shop. "Chiefly, perhaps, because I never had any worth wearing. But I've always thought I would like to wear a crest signet. I shall prize this, Mr. Graeme, as the very greatest treasure I have—"