In after days it seemed to Zoe that the stages of the journey were marked by the progress of her intimacy with Eirene Smith. There was that terrible midnight hour when, sleepy and bewildered, she was called upon by a ferocious German customs officer to explain the nature and purpose of the note-books in her dressing-bag, and could reply in nothing but scraps of French, Latin, and Greek, which ought to have increased the official’s respect for her, but only deepened his suspicions. Not a word of German would come to her mind, and the occupant of the other berth, an elderly French lady in an astonishing nightcap, was not only of no practical use, but was evidently watching between her curtains with awful joy to see Zoe haled from the train and arraigned before the authorities. Never was anything more welcome than the appearance of Eirene from the next cabin in an exquisite embroidered dressing-gown. She had heard the altercation, and, coming upon the scene, assumed the direction of affairs. Her German did not forsake her, and the customs officer went away placated, but grimly assuring Zoe that she might thank Ihre Fräulein Schwester that she and her possessions were not detained. The relief was great, and Zoe thanked Eirene heartily in rather tremulous tones. The French lady, disappointed of her expected sensation, transferred herself easily to the side of the victor, and inveighed against the brutality of the official while eulogising the courage and coolness of Eirene.
“And the prudence also of mademoiselle!” she cried. “She has there even her jewel-case, not forgetting to snatch it up at a moment of the greatest tension!”
“I never let it leave me,” said Eirene simply. “See, madame, they are very precious to me, these jewels. They are of the possessions of my late dear mother.”
She opened the box, and took out one or two of the trinkets it contained, handsome and old-fashioned; not at all sufficient, in Zoe’s opinion, to account for the anxiety she had expressed in speaking of them to her.
“Ah, very pretty,” said madame, regarding them with greedy eyes. “Too old in style for a young girl, but you will doubtless have them reset. But how comes it that all the jewels are yours, mademoiselle, while your elder sister wears not so much as a pin?”
“We are not own sisters, madame,” returned Eirene, with a fascinating mixture of truth and audacity. “But that makes no difference to our love, does it, my Zoe?”
Eirene had the jewel-case with her again when she and Zoe met in the dressing-room the next morning. They had been charged to make haste, as the elder ladies desired the room to themselves for the process of hair-dressing, which could not properly be performed before youthful eyes, but Eirene fastened the doors and opened her box a second time.
“Now I will show you!” she said gleefully. “You shall see that I trust you, though you don’t trust me, and that I am willing to confide to you anything that affects myself alone. Look, then!” and Zoe gazed, astonished, as the satin lining of the lid fell forward on the pressure of a spring, revealing a wonderful necklace of huge pearls fitting into a shallow receptacle evidently constructed for it. In like manner the sides and trays of the box, judiciously manipulated, revealed a number of emerald and diamond sprays—the stones extraordinarily fine—which might either be used separately, or united to form a necklace or tiara, and a bodice ornament of great rubies in the shape of a globe flanked by spreading wings, with a deep pendant. Lastly, Eirene showed that the box had also a false bottom.
“This is my greatest treasure,” she said, exhibiting a number of golden plaques which could be fastened one to another to form a girdle. Each plaque was curiously embossed with the figure of a saint, apparently raised in enamel upon the gold background, while the halo and portions of the dress were encrusted with precious stones. “I am obliged to take it to pieces for travelling, but I do it with terror, for it is old—yes, of an astonishing antiquity, and there is nothing like it in the whole world.”
“It must be Byzantine work, surely?” asked Zoe, examining it with intense interest.