"Will they buy me the heart of your good friend Francis?" For the first time Torres looked at her, and nodded and muttered, his eyes swimming with drink and wild-eyed with sight of such array of gems.
"Will good Francis so value them?" Torres nodded speechlessly.
Do all persons so value them?" Again he nodded emphatically.
She began to laugh in silvery derision. Bending, at haphazard she clutched a priceless handful of the pretties.
Come," she commanded. "I will show you how I value them."
She led him across the room and out on a platform that extended around three sides of a space of water, the fourth side being the perpendicular cliff. At the base of the cliff the water formed a whirlpool that advertised the drainage exit for the lake which Torres had heard the Morgans speculate about.
With another silvery tease of laughter, the Queen tossed the handful of priceless gems into the heart of the whirlpool. "Thus I value them," she said.
Torres was aghast, and, for the nonce, well-nigh sobered by such wantonness.
And they never come back," she laughed on. "Nothing ever comes back. Look!"
She flung in a handful of flowers that raced around and around the whirl and quickly sucked down from sight in the center of it.