She raised herself on her couch, animation and color returning to her face, light to her eyes, warmth to her face.
“Oh, that is very good of you!” she exclaimed. “I am very grateful, indeed I am.”
William Massarene laughed a little, deep down in his throat.
“Gratitude don’t wash, my dear. I never took a red cent of it in change for any goods of mine.”
“But I am grateful,” she said, disconcerted and vaguely distressed. “It was very good of you. What have you done with them? Where are they?”
He took a large packet out of his inner breast-pocket.
“I had the tiara dismounted because ’twas safer to carry it so. You’ll know how to put it together, I guess.”
With a scream of relief and delight she sprang up and seized the packet, tears of joy welling up into her eyes.
“Verify ’em,” said Massarene, and she undid the parcel and saw once more the great dazzling egg diamond and all its lesser luminaries. He watched her as a tom-cat on the tiles with gloating eyes may watch some white graceful feline form walking amongst roses in a garden.
“Verify ’em,” he repeated—“count ’em.”