The Ripening Rubies | Page 3

programme and her chatter; but now that I came suddenly upon her, she cried out with a delicious pretence of artlessness, and ostentatiously made room for me at her side.
"Do get me another cup of tea," she said; "I've been talking for ten minutes to Colonel Harner, who has just come from the great thirst land, and I've caught it."
"You'll ruin your nerves," said I, as I fetched her the cup, "and you'll miss the next dance."
"I'll sit it out with you," she cried gushingly; "and as for nerves, I haven't got any; I must have shed them with my first teeth. But I want to talk to you--you've heard the news, of course! Isn't it dreadful?"
She said this with a beautiful look of sadness, and for a moment I did not know to what she referred. Then it dawned upon my mind that she had heard of Lady Faber's loss.
"Yes," said I, "it's the profoundest mystery I have ever known."
"And can't you think of any explanation at all?" she asked, as she drank her tea at a draught. "Isn't it possible to suspect some one just to pass the time?"
"If you can suggest any one," said I, "we will begin with pleasure."
"Well, there's no one in this room to think of, is there?" she asked with her limpid laugh; "of course you couldn't search the curate's pockets, unless sermons were missing instead of rubies?"
"This is a case of 'sermons in stones,'" I replied, "and a very serious case. I wonder you have escaped with all those pretty brilliants on your sleeves."
"But I haven't escaped," she cried; "why, you're not up to date. Don't you know that I lost a marquise brooch at the Hayes's dance the other evening? I have never heard the last of it from my husband, who will not believe for a minute that I did not lose it in the crowd."
"And you yourself believe --"
"That it was stolen, of course. I pin my brooches too well to lose them--some one took it in the same cruel way that Lady Faber's rubies have been taken. Isn't it really awful to think that at every party we go to thieves go with us? It's enough to make one emigrate to the shires."
She fell to the flippant mood again, for nothing could keep her from that; and as there was obviously nothing to be learnt from her, I listened to her chatter sufferingly.
"But we were going to suspect people," she continued suddenly, "and we have not done it. As we can't begin with the curate, let's take the slim young man opposite. Hasn't he what Sheridan calls--but there, I mustn't say it; you know--a something disinheriting countenance?"
"He eats too many jam tarts and drinks too much lemonade to be a criminal," I replied; "besides, he is not occupied, you'll have to look in the ball-room."
"I can just see the top of the men's heads," said she, craning her neck forward in the effort. "Have you noticed that when a man is dancing, either he stargazes in ecstasy, as though he were in heaven, or looks down to his boots--well, as if it were the other thing?"
"Possibly," said I; "but you're not going to constitute yourself a vehmgericht from seeing the top of people's heads."
"Indeed," she cried, "that shows how little you know; there is more character in the crown of an old man's head than is dreamt of in your philosophy, as what's-his-name says. Look at that shining roof bobbing up there, for instance; that is the halo of port and honesty--and a difficulty in dancing the polka. Oh! that mine enemy would dance the polka--especially if he were stout."
"Do you really possess an enemy?" I asked, as she fell into a vulgar burst of laughter at her own humour; but she said:
"Do I possess one? Go and discuss me with the other women--that's what I tell all my partners to do; and they come back and report to me. It's as good as a play!"
"It must be," said I, "a complete extravaganza. But your enemy has finished his exercise, and they are going to play a waltz. Shall I take you down?"
"Yes," she cried, "and don't forget to discuss me. Oh, these crushes!"
She said this as we came to the press upon the corner of the stairs leading to the ball-room, a corner where she was pushed desperately against the banisters. The vigour of the polka had sent an army of dancers to the conservatory, and for some minutes we could neither descend nor go back; but when the press was somewhat relieved, and she made an effort to progress, her dress caught in a spike of the iron-work, and the top of a panel of silk which went down one side of it was ripped open