Part 11

"Lucky for you, perhaps," said Cyrus, "but not for me. I am sure you are even more desirable, more beautiful, more generally perfect and irresistible--if possible--than you were then."

"On the contrary. If you could see me by daylight you would shout for joy at your escape."

"No, Ruth, you can't fool me that way. Are you little or big?"

He groped about and laid a hand on her shoulder. "I should say you were little."

She pushed away the hand. "Keep your hands to yourself, Cyrus. You forget we are no longer children."

Cyrus obeyed. "True enough. But we were really married, you know. Surely a husband may touch his wife's shoulder. Tell me, have you the same wonder-working eyes and mouth and haughty bearing? You are not a great big woman, I have discovered that."

"No, I am neither big nor lovely. I am little and dried up--and wrinkled, like a baked apple--and surprisingly ugly."

"Dried up at your age? May I touch your face just a little?"

"You may not!"

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter. There's charm in baked apples. There's character in a dried-up face."

"But that was only the beginning. As I dried and shriveled, my hair fell out."

"Good! I love a bald head--especially in a woman. There's no distinction in hair. All animals have it. In that delectable period of sudden marriages, I remember some things clearly, as if yesterday. I recall distinctly the eyes of my bride. No man could forget them. In their fathomless depths even a boy could lose himself. And, oh, so beautiful! One such eye would transform a dried apple face into a thing of joy. And in that bride's face were two of them. Don't tell me they, also, are gone."

"Only one."

"Too bad! Have you lost any limbs?"

"Not yet."

"And your teeth are gone?"

"Oh, long, long ago."

There was a silence. So black was the enveloping darkness that the silence itself seemed heavy, as if forbidding conversation.

At last Cyrus spoke. "So far as I can learn, your face is like a baked apple, your teeth and one eye are gone, and you have no hair. But I'll take you as you are."

Ruth laughed. "Why, Cyrus! That's practically an offer of marriage! You appear even wilder and more reckless than when you were trying to discover whether you were in England or Massachusetts."

"On the contrary, I am wiser than you think. I was in love with you in Longfields--and I am finding now that neither time nor absence have changed that feeling. What's a tooth, an eye, or a few hairs more or less to an honest lover?"

"Honest humbug! You forget how well I knew you. You had no respect for truth."

"Yes, but only as a child. I am telling the truth now, on my honor. Let's not separate again. Why, it's beginning a new life! Come. Let's go back to the Unitarian Church and be married just once more. Only once more; that's all I ask."

"Indeed I shall not! I am not buying a pig in a poke. When daylight came and I really saw you I might be sick with horror."

"No, no! I'm not so bad as that! In fact I look about as I did when a boy, only--more beautiful."

"Then you are a funny looking man, Drowsy, with your sleepy eyes and your little buttoned-up mouth."

Cyrus laughed. "No, I swear I'm not funny looking. I have the same eyes, but my mouth is three times as long. It's one of the largest and most admired mouths in Massachusetts. But why these questions? You saw me a few minutes ago when I came along. The glare of those headlights ought to illuminate any kind of a face."

"You held your hand before your face to shade your eyes."

"So I did. But, seriously, Ruthy, I realize now that all my old feeling for you has never died. Your voice alone revives the memories of those pleasant years. Why part again? It might be forever."

"A thousand reasons."

"But no good ones. What better test of my affection could you want? I don't ask to see your face. Your voice, your words, yourself, and old-time memories are more than enough. Come. Say yes."

"No. Never in the world! Suppose, when you could really see me, there came regrets. What a position for a woman! Oh, no! Never that!"

"Don't say 'never.'"

"Is this a habit of yours--making love in the dark to women you don't know? You should have a guardian."

"Be that guardian!"

"Thank you, I have other occupations."

Here came a silence. The thoughts of Cyrus, whatever they might be, were interrupted by Ruth:

"You must think me a most adaptable woman, Cyrus, to fall in love, at a minute's notice, with a voice and a memory."

"If you are a toothless, hairless, wrinkled, one-eyed hag you ought to be grateful."

"A toothless hag, even with no pride--may have a little caution."

"Anyway," said Cyrus, and he spoke more seriously--and with more decision--"I am in earnest. I may be talking like a fool--I don't know how to express myself. Meeting you again is like a new life. As a little girl, Ruthy, you were everything to me. You don't know what a difference, what a void it made when you vanished and left me adrift. Now that we are again together, and I am older, I realize what I lost. After you left Longfields--and your leaving was awfully sudden, if you remember--not even a chance to say good-by--I used to sit on your doorstep and try to think you would come out."

"Is that true?"

"On my honor. And one moonlight night when father and Joanna thought I was in bed I stood at my window and tried to get a message to you, in the old way--hoping a thought would reach you. Then I stole out of the house, ran to yours and threw little stones against the closed shutters of your empty chamber. Of course no answer came. But I waited and waited. The moonlight seemed to encourage me. And when I had waited in vain--a very long time,--it seemed a year--I pretended you came to the window and we had a long talk."

She laughed. "And what did I say?"

"You said just what I wanted you to say: the nicest things; the things I was yearning for. Quite different from what you are saying to-night."

"If you thought of me so much, why didn't you write to me?"

"I did. I wrote twice."

"I never got them."

"I will tell you why you never got them if you will promise not to laugh."

"I promise."

"They were directed simply to Miss Ruth Heywood, China. And China, I have learned since, is a larger place than Longfields."

"Oh, you poor boy!"

"And when I was a freshman at Cambridge, I tried hard to fall in love with a girl because she reminded me of you."

Ruth was silent. Cyrus went on. "When you first spoke here, a few minutes ago, your voice affected me in a way--in a way I can't describe. It seemed to open vistas of memory, as in a fairy tale. And the instant I realized that we were again together--why--it all came back with a rush--as of sunshine--like a wave, or a flood of unexpected happiness--and hope."

"Oh, Drowsy, what charming nonsense!"

"Yes--it is nonsense, if that kind of love is nonsense--the kind that begins in boyhood and never dies--that holds to one woman and will have no other."

He felt a hand on his arm. In her voice came a gentler note. "Listen, Drowsy. My uncle and I are on our way to a train. I am starting for Italy. When I know my permanent address I will--perhaps--see that you get it--indirectly, but not from me. Then, without committing either of us, if you are still as blind, as reckless and perverse as you are to-night, you can----"

"Still alive, Ruth?"

The voice came from the darkness and was close behind them.

Cyrus was presented as an old friend. He assisted the uncle in pouring the gasoline into the tank. The uncle was in haste to get away, still hoping to catch a train. There were a few words of parting before the motor with its two occupants slid away into the darkness.

This parting, to Cyrus, seemed even more sudden than the old one, long years ago.

For many minutes he stood looking in their direction. The night was black, and he saw nothing. But in his heart was a rosy dawn.

Incidentally, but of far less importance, he knew on what portion of the earth he had landed.

XII

"INCREDIBLE!"

A prosperous, self-reliant man, well built, well dressed and well pleased with himself, sat at a desk in his private office. It was the senior partner of the firm--a well known firm of Fifth Avenue jewelers. Being a wise man, he was wise enough to enjoy a reasonable pride in his own wisdom; also in his own pleasing personality, and in his own good face and figure. Now, sixty years of age, he had, moreover, enjoyed a quarter century of success--the reward, perhaps, of his own foresight in being the son of a prosperous father. He had inherited a well established business. As a leading member of a fashionable church he was grateful to himself, and to his Creator, for these, his many blessings.

Another well-dressed man--but younger than himself--entered abruptly and stood beside his desk. The Senior Partner looked up from his work, nodded, and smiled.

"Good morning, William."

"Good morning, Uncle Fred."

William was dapper, even more up-to-date in appearance than his uncle. Although more carefully attired, he was not so well dressed. For William's hair was so very smooth, and all that pertained to him so aggressively fresh and clean, his clothes so faultlessly in fit, his cravat, his scarf pin, his hair and his eyes such a pleasing harmony in shade and color as to divert the beholder's attention from his sensible face. In appearance William was unjust to himself, giving the impression, to strangers, of a vain or frivolous person. He was, on the contrary, a very intelligent man. Also, he was good. At the present moment there were signs of suppressed excitement in this cleanest of clean faces.

"Well," said the Senior Partner, "out with it."

"You remember Cyrus Alton, don't you, Uncle Fred?"

"No."

"Well, you met him some years ago. It was he who saved me from breaking my neck in the amateur circus at school."

"Oh! And he has regretted it ever since?"

William smiled. "No, sir. I hope not. But it was a mighty plucky thing to do. I fell from the trapeze and he was on the ground beneath. When he saw me coming, instead of jumping from under, like a sensible boy, he held out his arm to break the fall. It threw his shoulder out of joint, but saved me a broken neck--so we all thought."

"Yes, I remember now. It _was_ a plucky thing. It showed courage and presence of mind. How old was he?"

"About my age: twelve, I guess, or thirteen."

"He certainly played the hero on that day. Has he lived up to it?"

"I don't know. I have hardly seen him since we left school. I always liked him. We were great cronies--always together."

"Mighty lucky you were together on that occasion. What's his occupation, now?"

"Oh, chemistry and electricity. Science generally, I guess. But I don't think the world has been treating him well. His clothes are kind of ancient, and he looks hard up. He lives up in Massachusetts, in some little town or village. It's a dozen years since I have seen him, until he came in, a few minutes ago, with a curious kind of stone. He doesn't know what it is, and wants to find out. Wants us to tell him. It's beyond me, though. Would you mind seeing him just a minute, and looking at it?"

"A stone, did you say?"

"Yes, sir."

"What kind of a stone?"

"That's just what he doesn't know, nor I either."

"All right, show him in."

To the hero of the amateur circus came a cordial greeting from the Senior Partner, who alluded in a most friendly manner to that historic occasion. But were he not familiar with the story he would have found difficulty in recognizing the present visitor as the hero of such a day. For that was a deed requiring--to say nothing of courage--quick decision, quick action and that perfect confidence in physical strength which we attribute to the trained athlete. These wide-awake qualities were not suggested in any degree by the slow moving, sleepy eyed young man of slender figure to whom Hurry seemed a stranger. This man was a dreamer. But the Senior Partner had perhaps forgotten that the brightest pages of human history have been furnished by dreamers stirred to action. Moreover, it was clearly evident that this young man and Prosperity were not on friendly terms. And the dark color beneath his eyes seemed to indicate loss of sleep or nervous strain. Now the Senior Partner had never been in love with Poverty. He had the same sort of sympathy for it that Virtue has for Vice; or that Cleanliness has for Dirt. But he was determined, on William's account, to treat his old friend with proper consideration.

After a short conversation, retrospective and educational, the visitor laid in the hand of the Senior Partner what appeared to be a large glass door-knob. It was octagonal in shape with a convex top, and was broken at the stem. The color was a pale, apple green. The Senior Partner adjusted his glasses and politely examined it. He examined it with the same tactful consideration he would show to any well meaning person who believes his imitation pearl a priceless gem. This case, however, was certainly unusual. The man who could hand you a very large glass door knob and ask your opinion on it, as an expert in gems, required special treatment. And when the Senior Partner studied the visitor's face for some outward indications of the amazing credulity within, he searched in vain. Instead of the eager eyes and parted lips of a touch-and-go enthusiast hoping for sudden wealth, he encountered a firm, though boyish mouth, and two calm, dark, almost drowsy eyes that met his own with a tranquil sanity, having no relation, apparently, to their owner's misguided errand. However, the Senior Partner knew from experience that exteriors were deceptive.

While hesitating for words that might reveal, in the gentlest manner, the fact that the object was worthless, his nephew spoke, and in a tone of eager curiosity.

"What is it, Uncle Fred? What can it be?"

"That's hard to say. It is rather large for a door knob, or the stopper of any human decanter. It might be the pendant of a chandelier."

"I mean what is it made of? What is the material?"

"You mean what kind of glass?"

"Yes, sir; if it--if it _is_ glass."

"Then you think it is not glass?"

"That's what we want to find out."

This uncle was not misled by his nephew's earnestness. He knew William, and he knew him to be a ready believer in interesting things; one who could pin his faith on whatever he really wished to believe. And the uncle had learned that this capacity, combined with a lively imagination, became a perilous guide in matters of business. However, he held the object higher, between his eyes and the window.

"You think it might be rock crystal?" Then, turning to the visitor, "What is your own opinion, Mr. Alton?"

"Oh, I have no opinion; only hopes."

"And what are your hopes?"

Now Cyrus Alton had easily divined the Senior Partner's thoughts. "Hope is so inexpensive," he answered, "that I have been indulging in the brightest kind. But if I am flying too high I can easily come to earth again. Is it nothing but glass, after all?"

"Oh, I don't say that."

But the Senior Partner still marveled that any educated person should prove so gullible as to be deceived by this object in his hand. He looked again, and more carefully, at the visitor's face. This time the boyish mouth seemed to indicate nothing but inexperience. The heavy lidded eyes, however, calmly returned the searching gaze, as if they themselves were searching;--yet in a sleepy way, it seemed to the Senior Partner. And the Senior Partner was strengthened in his conviction that a man with those eyes and with such a mouth could believe almost anything. Yet he liked the young man's face. His voice was pleasant, and his manner of speech, while punctiliously polite and considerate of others, indicated decision and self-reliance.

"But, Uncle Fred," said William, "it is so heavy for its size. And it's cold, like a diamond. And it has that oily feeling on the polished face. It surely is not an artificial stone."

"No, possibly not. But the color, this pale, apple green, while an exquisite tint, is not usual in diamonds."

"But the famous 'Dresden' is that color, isn't it?"

"Yes, I believe so; but the famous 'Dresden' is smaller than a paving stone. This object, as you see, if a natural stone, must have been nearly twice its present dimensions before cutting. And even now it is fully twice the size of any diamond of which we have ever heard. You young gentlemen will admit that it must be the house of an exceedingly prosperous person where bulky door knobs were composed of single diamonds."

Nephew William frowned and drummed with his fingers on the top of the desk.

"And I doubt," continued the Senior Partner with his pleasant smile, "if there are many mines that yield jewels the size of ostrich eggs."

Cyrus Alton's eyes, in a dreamy way, were fixed upon the stone. "Couldn't this have come from some other planet?"

"Possibly, as a meteorite. But precious stones have not the habit of coming from that direction. However, nothing concerning astronomy can surprise us. Might I ask where you found it, Mr. Alton?"

Mr. Alton hesitated. As he drew a hand across his forehead the Senior Partner and his nephew noticed a hole in the faded and shiny coat sleeve; also that the linen cuff with its frayed edges had no fastenings. William's silent guess was correct. "The poor chap has had to sell his cuff buttons."

"If you don't mind, sir, I would rather not answer that question just at present."

"Certainly. Of course not! Excuse my asking."

"I am the one to apologize, sir. It is a most natural question, and I will answer it later."

"Of course, Mr. Alton, you understand my asking that question. The answer might give us light that would solve the riddle. If, for instance, you found it among broken fragments in a glass factory, we might be prejudiced regarding its ancestry."

"No. It was many miles from any factory."

"On the other hand, if unearthed in a diamond mine, or discovered on the forehead of a Hindoo god it's claim to distinction would be more clearly defined."

"Yes, I suppose so. But I thought an expert might judge the value of a stone without knowing its history."

"Certainly, certainly. But sometimes a ray of light on a doubtful subject facilitates a decision. If this majestic door knob, fragment of a balustrade, pendant to a chandelier, or whatever its original purpose--if this object is a diamond, Mr. Alton, it means a fortune to its owner. And I sincerely wish it were a diamond."

"But you know it isn't?"

"I don't say that; but no lapidary would ever cut a diamond as this is cut." Then, with a friendly smile as he handed it back to its owner, "If William here, or anybody else should offer you real money for it----"

"You advise me to take it."

The Senior Partner smiled and nodded. Cyrus Alton rose. "I thank you sincerely, sir, for this interview and for your opinion on my bogus gem." The Senior Partner also rose, and in shaking hands laid his other hand on the visitor's shoulder. "It may console you, Mr. Alton, to know that you are not the first person--nor the hundredth, for that matter--to be undeceived here in this office. The brightest hopes, especially with would-be pearls and diamonds, often vanish even more swiftly than they come."

While the smiling, leisurely mouth of Cyrus was getting ready to reply, a door opened, and a man entered. It was a short, stout man with fierce black eyebrows, black eyes and a heavy black beard, all in striking contrast to the whitest and baldest of heads.

"Ah, Mr. Bressani!" exclaimed the Senior Partner. "You are just the man!" After presenting Mr. Bressani to the visitor he said: "Give us the truth about this stone. What is it?" And he took the stone from Cyrus and handed it to the new arrival.

Now Mr. Bressani was more than an expert. His instinct in the matter of gems was abnormal. It was something more than instinct. It was a singular, innate sense; one of those unexplained faculties that enables its possessor to judge offhand, with certainty and precision, where others must weigh and reason. In important matters he was sought by jewelers. And there was no recorded case in which he had been deceived.

Now, as he held the doubtful object in his fat, white fingers, he suspected from the smile on the face of the Senior Partner that a joke was in the air. When he saw what was in his hand--apparently a piece of greenish glass--he raised his heavy black eyebrows, and, with a sidelong glance, studied the faces of the three men, one after another, to make sure they were not laughing at him. Nephew William smiled but shook his head. "No, we are serious. Tell us what you think."

Still doubtful, Mr. Bressani held it nearer his eye, turned it over in his large, baby fingers, moved it slowly up and down, evidently guessing its weight, and slowly passed a thumb over its surface. Then, as if surprised, he stepped hastily to the window and held it between his eyes and the light. Wheeling about, his eyebrows darted up in surprise. These eyebrows, thick and heavy, flew heavenward so swiftly and they traveled so far that they seemed to pull upon his big black eyes to twice their usual size and roundness. These astonished orbs he rolled toward the three men as if startled by a miracle. They proclaimed a bewildering, overwhelming astonishment that his half-open lips could not express.

"Why, it's a diamond!"

The Senior Partner rose and moved toward him. "Are you sure?"

But Mr. Bressani did not reply. Lost in wonder, apparently unconscious of his surroundings, he turned the object over and over, in every light, and at every angle. "Extraordinary!" he murmured. "Extraordinary! It doesn't seem possible."

"But are you sure?" repeated the Senior Partner.

"Absolutely."

"But who ever saw such a diamond?"

"Nobody! Nobody! It's incredible--miraculous--inconceivable. There never _was_ such a thing!"

"Just what I have been saying," from the Senior Partner. "Nobody would ever cut a diamond in that shape. And look at the size of it! And the color!"

"Yes, yes! It's hard to believe!"

"But you _do_ believe it?"

The bushy eyebrows went up, then down, with a shrug of shoulders. "Believe it? I know it! What do _you_ think it is, glass?"

"Well--er--yes, to be honest. I didn't know what else it could be. No human being ever saw a diamond of those dimensions."

"We are seeing it now. But whose is it?"

"It belongs to Mr. Alton."

"I congratulate you, Mr. Alton. You possess the most amazing diamond in history or fiction."

Cyrus bowed. "Then it is the largest you have ever seen?"

"Twice over. The famous Cullinan stone, the largest yet discovered, was about half this size."

"Let's weigh it," said William.

The expert placed it on the little scales that stood on the top of the Senior Partner's desk. The three men waited in silence for the verdict. After a close scrutiny of the scales Mr. Bressani straightened up, turned toward the three pairs of eyes--all fixed intently on his own--and exclaimed:

"Really--it is hard to believe!"

"How much?" came, in the same breath, from the Senior Partner and his nephew.

"Seventy-one hundred carats!"

The nephew laughed nervously. "Why--there never was such a diamond!"

The Senior Partner frowned. "Impossible!"

Mr. Bressani's hand trembled slightly, as he lifted the stone from the scales and again held it to the light. "Yes--yes--it does seem impossible!"

"But nobody ever saw such a diamond!" was again announced by William.

"Never!" from Mr. Bressani.

"How much did the Cullinan weigh?" William asked.

"About three thousand and thirty carats in the rough--about a pound and three-quarters. It was cut into three large stones and several smaller ones. Two of these stones are the largest brilliants in existence."

"But, are you sure, Bressani," said the Senior Partner, "absolutely sure that it _is_ a diamond?"