He indicated, sternly, a solitaire that looked, he thought, about like Martha's.

'How much is that?'

'That? Not a bad stone. Let me see... Oh, three hundred dollars.'

Henry, huskily, in a dazed hush of the spirit, repeated the words:—

'Three—hundred—dollars!'

The salesman tapped with manicured fingers on the showcase.

'Have you—have you—have you...

The salesman raised his eyebrows.

'... any others?'

'Oh, yes, we have others.' He drew out a tray from the wall behind him. 'I can show fairly good stones as low as sixty or eighty dollars. Here's one that's really very good at a hundred.'