If she were to remain on the stage another year she could perhaps treble the amount, and to leave the stage she would have to provide herself with an adequate income. There was the tiara which the subscribers to the opera in New York had presented her with--that would fetch a good deal. It didn't become her, but it recalled a time of her life that was very dear to her, and she would be sorry to part with it. But from the point of view of ornament, she liked better the band of diamonds which a young Russian prince had sent to her anonymously. A few nights after, she had been introduced to him at a ball. His eyes went at once to the diamonds, a look of rapture had come into his face, and she had at once suspected he was the sender. They had danced many times, and retired for long, eager talks into distant corners. And the following evening she had found him waiting for her at the stage door. He had begged her to meet him in a park outside the city. He was attractive, young, and she was alone. Owen was away. She had thought that she liked him, and it was exciting to meet him in this distant park, their carriages waiting for them below the hill. She could still see the grey, lowering sky and the trees hanging in green masses; she had thought all the time it was going to rain. She remembered his pale, interesting face and his eager, insinuating voice. But he had had to leave St. Petersburg the next day. It was one of those things that might have, but had not, happened. How strange! She might have liked him. How strange; she never would see him. And she sat dreaming a long while. Owen had given her a clasp, composed of two large emerald bosses set with curious antique gems, when she played Brunnhilde. The necklace of gem intaglios, in gold Etruscan filigree settings, he had given her for her Elsa--more than her Elsa was worth. For Elizabeth he had given her ropes of equal-sized pearls, and the lustre of the surfaces was considered extraordinary. For Isolde he had given her strings of black pearls which the jewellers of Europe had been collecting for more than a year. Every pearl had the same depth of colour, and hanging from it was a large black brilliant set in a mass of white brilliants. He had hung it round her neck as she went on the stage, and she had had only time to clasp his hands and say "dearest." These presents alone, she thought, could not be worth less than ten thousand pounds.