The Ripening Rubies | Page 3

passée, and sufficient wit to make an interval tolerable. I,
as a rule, had danced once with her, and then avoided both her
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