“I suppose so,” she replied.
“And I must confide in some one, for the thing seems to burn a sort of hole in me.”
“My good, dear, delightful friend,” said the Frenchwoman, “don’t let the secret prey on you in that fashion, for it will undermine your so precious health. Confide it to one who is ardent to help you, who has for you already the affection the most profound.”
“It is nothing, of course,” said Mrs Dawson, “and you will promise not to tell.”
“I have promised.”
Again the hand was laid over the region of the heart.
“Well, then,—it is just this. I know a good jewel when I see it, for my poor husband, the late Dawson, was in the jewellery line, and he taught me to know at a glance the difference between poor gold and good gold, and imitation stones and real ones; and if you will believe me, Mademoiselle d’Etienne, that little minx of a Fanchon Amberley came into the house the other evening with a bangle on her arm which for all the world might have been this,”—here she pointed to the Standard. “That bangle might have meant three guineas in my pocket, for it was eighteen carat gold as I am alive, and the turquoise in it was the most beautiful I ever saw.”
Mademoiselle’s dark face flushed and then paled; but she did not stir or show any other sign of special interest. After a minute, she said gently:
“There are so many bangles now-a-days, and they are all more or less alike.”
“Of course Miss Fanchon—”