From the woman’s hand something fell with a golden tinkle to the parqueted floor. A surge of the crowd drove her forward, her French heel crushed what she had dropped. The diamond pencil pricked the white wrist between the buttons of her dainty glove; she withdrew it, a little scarlet bead glistening on the shining point, and hesitated, only an instant, looking at the offered tablets of ebony and gold.
“Come, sign!... It will be over in an instant, and, believe me, you will feel far more comfortable afterward!� She remembered that her dentist had employed the same phrases only a day or two before in persuading her to consent to the removal of a decayed incisor. That tooth’s successor—a perfect, polished example of human ivory—gleamed as her lips drew back in a nervous laugh provoked by the absurdity of the analogy. She scrawled her signature, and the promise was fulfilled. She was calm—at ease—had no more worrying doubts and silly scruples. He wore no indiscreet expression of proprietorship; his lips did not even smile. And if there was mocking triumph in his eyes, his discreetly dropped lids concealed it.... He bowed profoundly as he took the ebony tablets, and then he lifted his gloved left hand and laid a finger on the iron doors. And they rolled apart, revealing the great safe with many patent locks, and the auctioneer at his desk, and the clerk at his; and the chosen already in their seats, and the elaborate preparations for the elaborate farce that was to be played, all ready. A savage rage boiled up in her as she looked at the smug faces of the secret Syndicate, actors well-versed in their separate parts. But the pressure of the chattering, screaming, perfumed crowd behind her carried her over the threshold, and her companion too. Packed tightly as sardines in the confined space about the rostrum, Society waited the great event. And a bunch of master-keys was produced by the senior partner of Briscoe’s, and with much juggling of patent locks the great safe gave up the big, square jewel-case containing the famous collection, and a sibilant “Ss’s!� of indrawn breaths greeted the lifting of its lid.
“Do not look at me! Listen—and look at the jewels,� whispered the smooth, caressing voice in the ear of the woman who had just signed away her soul in exchange for the sensation of the day. And as a giant commissionaire bearing pearl ropes and tiaras, bracelets and rings and necklaces, nervously paraded up and down the central aisle left for his convenience, and the chattering and screaming of the society cockatoos redoubled, in envious admiration of each swaggering, glittering, covetable gewgaw, the devil told the woman very plainly how the thing was to be done.
“The stone that I shall give you is an exact replica in a newly-invented paste of the stone that is the price of what I have bought from you. When the commissionaire brings round the Blue Diamond, touch the jewel boldly—take it in your hand, as it is permissible to do—and substitute the paste. Have no fear! I will undertake that the act is undetected. Thenceforth wear your prize undismayed; boast of it as you will. The one—the only—drawback to your perfect happiness must be that society will believe your jewel to be false, while you have the exquisite joy of knowing it to be genuine. So take this, and act as I have counseled. Two hours to wait before you can dare to escape with it, for the Blue Diamond will be the last lot of the day. But what are two hours, even spent in a vitiated atmosphere, with such a prize your own, hidden in your glove or in your hand? A mere nothing! And here comes the commissionaire with the Diamond.... Only an alumina in hexagonal arrangement crystallized in the cooling of this planet you call ‘the World’ as arrogantly as though there were no others, and yet how unique, how exquisite! See how the violet rays leap from the facets, even the noblest sapphire looks cold and pale beside the glorious gem. Murder has been committed for its shining sake over and over again in ages of which your history has no cognizance. It has purchased the faith of Emperors and the oaths of Kings. Rivers of blood have flowed because of it. Peerless women have laid down their honor to gain it. And it will be yours ... yours! Quick, the commissionaire is coming. School your hand to steadiness; no need to hide your lust, for all faces wear the same look here. Only be quick, and have no fear!�
The eyes of the commissionaire were fastened upon the woman’s white, ringed, well-manicured hand, as in its turn it lifted the Blue Diamond—slightly set in platinum as a pendant—from its pale green velvet bed. But yet she effected the exchange. The substituted paste jewel was borne on—the paroquets and cockatoos chattered and screamed as loudly over the false stone as they had over the real, which lay snugly hidden in the thief’s fair bosom. The syndicate of dealers played out their farce to its end, and Mr. Ulysses Wanklyn, to the infinite chagrin of Mr. Cupid Bose, and the gnashing discomfiture of Messrs. Moreen and Blant, secured the paste diamond at ninety-four thousand pounds. And amidst cries and congratulations the day ended. And the woman, with her price in her bosom, escaped into the open air, and signaled to the chauffeur waiting with her motor-brougham and drove home. Fear and triumph filled her. When would the theft be discovered? How soon would voices in the streets begin to clamor of the stolen gem? How should she who had stolen it ever dare to wear or to vaunt it, with Scotland Yard—with the detective eyes of all the world upon her? She had been befooled, duped, defrauded; she moaned as she bit her lace handkerchief through.... She reached her dainty boudoir just in time to have hysterics behind its locked and bolted doors. And when she had quieted herself with ether and red lavender, she drew the Blue Diamond from its hiding-place, and it gleamed in her palm with a diabolical splendor, as though the stone were sentient, and knew what it had cost. Could the great dealers be deceived—a probability quite impossible—she would be at liberty to wear this joy, this glory, to see its myriad splendors reflected in envious eyes. She kissed it as she had never kissed her child or any of her lovers—with passion, until its sharp facets cut her lips. And, as she kissed it, her quick ears were alert to catch the shoutings of the newsmen in the streets. But there were none. She dined in her boudoir, and slept, with the aid of veronal; and in the morning’s newspaper there was not a wail, not a word! She gave the king bird of Paradise hat to her maid—she was so pleased, so thankful! The afternoon papers, and those of the next day and the next, were dumb upon the subject of the daring theft of the big Blue Diamond from Briscoe’s famous auction-room. She grew more and more secure. And one never-to-be-forgotten night she put on a Paquin gown and went to a great reception at a ducal house with the Blue Diamond as pendant to her pearl-and-brilliant collar. She counted on the cockatoos screeching, but they did not screech. The eyes that dwelt on the Blue Diamond were astonished, surprised, covertly amused, contemptuous.
“That is for luck, I suppose, dear?� cooed one of her intimate friends. “I mean that large blue crystal you are wearing.... I bought some last winter at a jeweler’s in the bazaar at Rangoon—they find them with moonstones and olivines and those other things in the débris at the Ruby Mines, I understood. I must have mine mounted. By the way, do you know that——� (she mentioned the name of a great financier of cosmopolitan habits and international fame) “has bought the Blue Diamond from Ulysses Wanklyn for a hundred and ten thousand pounds: She�—her voice dropped a little as she referred to a lady upon whom the great financier was reputed to have bestowed his plutocratic affections—“will be here to-night. Probably she will wear it! They say she was absolutely determined on his getting it for her, and so.... À porte basse, passant courbé, especially when the circumstances are pretty. What do you say? You heard it had been discovered by the dealers that the Blue Diamond had been found to be false ... a paste imitation, or a cut crystal like that thing you are wearing? Oh, my dear, how quite too frightfully absurd a canard! As though Ulysses Wanklyn and Cupid Bose and Blant, and all the other connoisseurs, could be deceived! What a very remarkable-looking man that is who is bowing to you!... The graceful person with the Apostolic profile and the beautiful silky beard�—and the intimate friend gave a little shudder. “And the extraordinary eyes that give one a crispation of the nerves?...�
It was he—her Purchaser—moving suddenly toward her through the throng of naked backs and bare bosoms.
“I hope,� he said, and bowed and smiled, “that you are satisfied with the result of our ... negotiations the other day?� Then, as the fashionable crowd parted and the Great Financier walked through the rooms, his imperious mistress upon his arm, her husband looking amiable behind them, he added, indicating the swinging central pendant of the lady’s superb diamond tiara, with a wave of a slender white-gloved hand, “My substitute was convincing, you think; you suppose it has deceived even the experts? Not in the least—the substitution of the paste stone for the Blue Diamond was discovered as soon as the public had quitted the auction-room. But Messrs. Wanklyn and Bose and my other very good friends who lay down the law in jewels as in other things, to Society, agreed not to lose by the fraud. The paste has the cachet of their approval, and has been sold for a great sum. ‘What water!’ the world is crying. ‘What luster!’ ‘How superb a gem!’ While you, my poor friend, who display upon your bosom the real stone, have merely been credited with a meretricious taste for wearing Palais Royal jewelry. Pardon! I have not deceived you—or not in the way you imagine.... I said the Blue Diamond should be yours.... It is! I said you should be envied; you should, certainly. It is a thousand pities you are only sneered at. I said you might be happy.... It is most regrettable that you do not find the happiness you looked for. Au revoir, dear lady, au revoir!�
She felt indisposed, and went home....