"I don't know. Strictly, I should think not," said I impassively.

Marie Delhasse stretched out her hand and began to finger the stones.

"She wore them, did she?"

"Certainly."

"Ah! I supposed they had just been bought." And she took her fingers off
them.

"It would take a large sum to do that--to buy them _en bloc_," I observed.

"How much?"

"Oh, I don't know! The market varies so much: perhaps a million francs,
perhaps more. You can't tell how much people will give for such things."

"No, it is difficult," she assented, again fingering the necklace, "to say
what people will give for them."

I leaned back in my chair. There was a pause. Then her eyes suddenly met
mine again, and she exclaimed defiantly:

"Oh, you know very well what it means! What's the good of fencing about
it?"

"Yes, I know what it means," said I. "When have you promised to go?"

"To-morrow," she answered.