"Wallace!" she turned from him indignantly and the firelight showed that her eyes were full of tears.
"I mean it just the same." He placed his tea-cup on the table and bent toward her. "Look here, Maud, your friend, Mrs. Hepworth, is a very pretty woman, but she isn't a very bright one."
"That is just where you are mistaken," she returned. "She is extremely clever but you don't seem to understand how much training and environment have to do with those things. Take a woman as pretty as Dita, a woman who has been beautiful and admired from her babyhood—she has always been the center of attraction, she has never had to observe people closely, to study their moods and characteristics, never has had to try to please." There was a depth of mournful experience in Maud's tone. "Therefore she seems to carry things with a high hand, seems to lack subtlety and finesse and deference to the opinions of others. Therefore, you, seeing this, immediately put it down to lack of brains. It is a stupidity unworthy of you, at least it is a snap-shot judgment, a lack of that careful, sympathetic study and analysis of character which I should fancy would be necessary to you as a playwright."
He sat for a moment or two, with hands loosely clasped between his knees, gazing into the bed of glowing coals. This attitude and silence on his part continued for some minutes. "There!" he turned around so suddenly that she jumped, "I've given due and careful consideration to all you have to say and I will repeat my original statement. Mrs. Hepworth is a very pretty woman, but she isn't a very bright one, not bright enough to be ordinarily discreet."
Her shoulders twitched petulantly. "Wallace! The blot on your character is that you are a bit of a gossip, yes you are, and you mingle with a lot of idle people who have nothing better to do than to spend time that might be put to valuable uses in making mountains out of mole hills. Truly, it's an idiotic mental employment that is not worthy of you."
"Maud, you rouse me to argument; you do, really. I am not talking about Mrs. Hepworth's very manifestly displayed interest in Gresham last night. That might be attributed to half a dozen different causes. She might have had a row with her husband or dressmaker, or have been so bored by the happy family group gathered about her that she was ready for anything. Any one could see that she was rather out-of-sorts, excited and reckless and all that. I am not even thinking of last night, and I will immediately withdraw any aspersions I may seem to have cast on Mrs. Hepworth's brain power, if you will tell me why she gave Eugene Gresham that old trinket, amulet, talisman or whatever it is?"
Maud began to laugh, quite naturally at first, and then she stopped suddenly. She remembered the scene of the night before, the empty space in the tray. She remembered Cresswell Hepworth's surprise, and Dita's sullenness.
"But you heard Dita last night say that it was broken and that it was being mended," she protested, but some way her protestations sounded flat and unconvincing in her own ears.
"Yes, and you remember that she glanced quickly at Eugene Gresham before she answered. You also remember that Hepworth, in the innocence of his heart, explained that the old legend or tradition which had been connected with the charm for centuries had been that it could neither be bought nor sold, but that it could only be given away, given away with the heart's love of the possessor, and in that case it would prove a blessing to both him who gave and him who took."
Martin stooped and lifted the Persian cat upon his knees. "Well, my dear Maud, the end of that story is that Gresham has the amulet."