In all matters of love there is a vast amount of luck. That there is of course in all human affairs, as far as we can interpret them; but what I mean is a larger element of luck than in any of our other miseries; unless it be the still finer conflict, and far more enduring one, for money. Any one might have concluded, as I did, that it was all up now with every little hope I might have nursed of winning the favour of Dariel. Yielding to a sudden rush of jealousy, I had quitted her hastily and almost rudely, and broken my appointment with her father. It was true that her calmness and perfect indifference were enough to provoke a saint--if he ever falls in love; but how could she know that? Though certainly she ought to know it, if she ever thought of me in at all the proper vein. "What a fool I am! It will serve me quite right, if she never even condescends to glance at me again," I thought, as I wandered about in the dark, after going home at a great pace upon the wings of rage; "and just as I was getting on so nicely too! What is the use of my going to see that Nickols? A rogue no doubt, almost sure to be a rogue, for sticking a foreign tail on to his name. No doubt he cheats them of their diamonds and rubies. That is why he wants to see this cross. Worth a lot of money, I dare say. What an idiot I must be, to even think of that, when I remember where it has been so often! Oh, Dariel, Dariel! When I first saw your beautiful, enchanting, ravishing, idolatrous--idolised I mean, confound it all--who could have imagined that I should ever hold this badge of your faith--this symbol of your own high-minded, lofty-souled archetype--pish, there is no word to come near her! But, oh, shall I never come near her again?" To cut short all discussion, I found myself in a frightful state both of head and of heart, and ready to do anything to bring matters to the crisis. Accordingly I said to Slemmick, who was in his right mind now, "Just look after things to-day; I'm obliged to go to London." He grinned, and I knew that he would be a tiger to any man lying down under a rick. As yet my conceptions about jewellers, diamond-merchants, and the like were little more than a confusion of the Arabian Nights and Bond Street; so that it seemed to be quite a mistake when the policeman in a little dingy street pointed out a very common-looking house as the abode of Signor Nicolo. There was nothing to show that it contained as much as a paste shoe-buckle or a coral pin, and it struck me that if diamonds were tested there the light must proceed from the jewel itself. But perhaps it would be lighted up by Koh-i-noors, Stars of the South, and other glorious luminaries.