"Harry," she breathed, without taking her gaze from the thing in her hand, "do look at this!"
She felt him lean closer. Then with an abrupt "Let's see it," he took it from her--held it to the light, laid it on his palm, looking sharply across the counter at the shopkeeper, then back at the ring with a long scrutiny. His face, too, had a flush of excitement.
"A sapphire," he said, and taking her third finger by the tip, he slid on the thin circle of metal.
She breathed high, looking down at the stone with eyes absorbed in the blue fire. There was none of the cupidity of women for jewels in her look. It was the intrinsic beauty of this drop of dark liquid light that had captured her. It had mystery, and her imagination woke to it--the wistful mystery of perfect beauty. And perfect beauty in such a place! It was too beautiful. The feeling it brought her was too sharp for pure pleasure. It was dimly like fear. Yet instinctively she shut her hand about the ring. She murmured out her wonder.
"How in the world did such a thing come here?"
"Oh, not so strange," Harry answered. He leaned on his elbow upon the counter, his head bent close to hers above the single, glittering point that drew the four eyes to one focus. "Sailors now and then pick up a thing of whose value they have no idea--get hard up, and pawn it--still without any idea. These chaps"--and his bold hand indicated the shopkeeper--"take in anything--that is, anything worth their while; and wait, and wait, and wait until they see just the moment--and turn it to account."
It might be because Harry's eyes were so taken with the jewel that his tongue ran recklessly. He had spoken low, but Flora sent an anxious glance to be sure the shopkeeper hadn't overheard. She had meant only to glance, but she found herself staring into eyes that stared back from the other side of the counter. That wide, unwinking scrutiny filled her whole vision. For an instant she saw nothing but the dance of scintillant pupils. Then, with a little gasp she clutched at her companion's arm.
His glance came quickly round to her. "Why, what's the matter?"
She murmured, "That Chinaman has blue eyes."
He looked at her with good-natured wonder.
"Why, Flora, haven't you blue on the brain? I believe he has, though," he added, as he peered across the counter at the shopkeeper, whose gaze now fluttered under narrowed lids; "but why in the world should blue eyes scare you?" His look returned indulgently to Flora's face.