"Ah-hum!" said he, feigning indifference, "some pretty good ones, eh?" He poked around among them with the end of his penholder, as the gray and grave man quietly opened one paper package after another, and exposed his wares. John Rawn reached out and pushed the button farthest to the right in the long row on his desk. Miss Delaware came and stood quietly awaiting his command. Her eyes caught, in the next moment, the shivering radiance which now flamed on the desk top, as Rawn poked around among the gems that lay under the beams of the westering sun which came through the window. Rawn turned quickly. He thought he had heard a sigh, a sob. Something in the soul of Virginia Delaware leaped! For the first time her eyes shone with brighter fire; for the first time she half-gasped in actual emotion. There was something in diamonds which spoke to her also! "Essence of power!" said John Rawn calmly, poking among the gems. The girl did not answer. The salesman coughed gently: "I should say a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth there, Mr. Rawn," said he respectfully. The man whom he addressed turned to the girl who stood there, her eyes dilated. He half smiled. "They're lovely!" said Virginia Delaware, in spite of herself, and now unmasked. "Absolutely lovely! I love them!" "Pick out two things there," said John Rawn sententiously, pushing himself back from the desk. "I should say this pendant. Take a guess at the rings. What would Mrs. Rawn like; and what would about suit Mrs. Rawn?" She bent above the desk, her eyes aflame at the sight of the brilliance that lay before her. Something laughed up at her, spoke to her. Her bosom heaved a bit. "I should say your choice is excellent, Mr. Rawn," said she at length, gently, controlling herself. "The pendant is beautiful, set with the emeralds. See that chain in platinum--it is a dear! It's like a thread of moonlight, isn't it? And as for the rings, I'd take this one, I believe, with the two steel-blue stones." "How much?" said John Rawn, turning to the grave and gray salesman. "The two pieces would cost you twenty-eight thousand dollars, sir," the latter replied, gravely and impersonally. "Miss Delaware," said John Rawn, taking from his pocket his personal check book, "oblige me by making out a check for that amount. Bring it in to me directly--and have the boy call my car." X When John Rawn ascended the steps of his mansion house that night, he fairly throbbed with the sense of his own self-approval. There was that in his pocket which, he thought, when worn by the wife of John Rawn at any public place of display, would indicate what grade of life he, John Rawn, had shown himself fit to occupy. He lost no time in summoning his wife, and with small adieu put in her extended hand the little mass of trembling, shivering gems. She gazed at them almost stupefied. "Well, well!" he broke out, "can't you say anything? What about it? They're yours."