“A superb setting,” continued Madame Almansa. “It must be very, very old. I love that kind of setting--beautifully engraved, dull gold. The only objection is that it’s the best kind for deceiving one as to genuineness, isn’t it? One could not tell whether that stone was genuine or imitation. You know, they make such wonderful imitations. When I was going out in the world I had all my best jewels reproduced in imitation stuff, and usually I wore the imitation. One felt so much safer.” Elsie drew her hand away, smiling sweetly. She was inwardly raging--“The cat!” she said to herself. “Clawing me viciously, and purring as if she hadn’t a claw.” She left in a few minutes, Rontivogli calling for her. To relieve her feelings, and also because she was in the habit of saying nearly everything that came into her head, she told him what Madame Almansa had said, making vigorous comments as she related. Rontivogli, half turned toward her as they sat side by side in her victoria, regarded her with his luminous smile. “That is the way of the world, _ma belle et bonne_,” he said in his gentlest manner. “It is difficult to harden one’s self to such wickedness. But there is also much that is beautiful and fine. And we--you and I--will shut everything else out of our lives, will we not?” He made her feel unworthy, almost “common,” when he talked in that fashion--she realised painfully that she was sadly lacking in “temperament,” and she dreaded that he might find her out. “The ring,” he went on, “has been in the family for eight hundred years--perhaps longer. It is unchanged. No question of its genuineness has ever been raised, so far as I know. We are not so suspicious as some of you Americans.” “She didn’t question it’s genuineness,” replied Elsie. “She simply wished to make me uncomfortable with a malicious insinuation. Or, maybe, she was just talking. It was silly of me to tell you.” He protested that he was not disturbed. But he seemed unable long to keep off the subject, returning to it as the cleverest habitual liar will fatuously return to his unquestioned lie to weaken it by trying further to bolster it up. So persistent was he that he at last made her uneasy--not that she suspected him, or was conscious of having been disturbed by his unnecessary reassurances. The next morning she went down to a jeweller’s in Pennsylvania Avenue--she had other business there and thought it her sole object in going, forgetting that she had intended to send her mother. She discussed several proposed purchases with the manager, whom she knew well. As she talked she had her elbows on a show case, and her ungloved hands clasped so that the ring was in full view--curiously, it was not on the engagement finger. He noted it, thought she wished him to speak of it, because as she exhibited it she often glanced at it. “Would you mind letting me look at that beautiful ring?” he asked.