"This is even better than I expected," she murmured. "I shall be able to trim my dress with them, I can have them all over my skirt, I can cover my bodice. I am going simply as ’rubies.’ Give me that tiara." She placed the glittering crown on her head, she draped her neck and arms with the beautiful stones. Benstein gasped, and his little eyes watered. Was there ever so lovely a woman before? he wondered. When Isa looked at him like that he could refuse her nothing. It was criminally weak, but—— "The thing is almost complete," Isa said. "Now haven’t you got something out of the common, some black swan amongst rubies that I could attach to the centre of my forehead, something to blaze like the sun? Aaron, you’ve got it; you are concealing something from me." The financier laughed weakly, still dazzled by that show of beauty. In a dazed way he unlocked a little compartment and took a huge stone from a leather bag. His hands trembled as he handed it to his wife. "You can try it," he said hoarsely; "you can see how it goes. But you can’t have that to wear, no, no. If anything happened to it, they would make an international business of it, my life wouldn’t be worth a day’s purchase. You are not to ask me for that, no, no." He meandered on in a senile kind of way. With a low cry Isa fastened on the gem. She pressed it to her white forehead, where it blazed and sparkled. The effect was electric, wonderful. She stood before a mirror fascinated and entranced by her own beauty. "I shall have it," she said. "I couldn’t go without this, Aaron. You are going to have it set into the finest of gold wires for me. Come, I won’t even ask you where you got it from. And from what you say, nobody in England is likely to recognise it. Aaron, do, do." Her smile was subtle and pleading. Nobody could have withstood it. Benstein gabbled something, his cheeks shook. "Oh, Lord," he groaned. "If anything does happen! Well, well, my darling! Unlock the door and stay here till I come back. What artful creatures you women are! My dear, my dear. Positively I must go into the dining-room and treat myself to a liqueur-brandy!" *CHAPTER XIII.* *THE QUEEN OF THE RUBIES.* The faint sobbing of violins sounded from somewhere, giving the artistic suggestion of being far off, the dominant note of the leader hung high on the air. Now and then a door opened somewhere, letting in the splitting crack of Piccadilly, the raucous voices of news-boys more or less mendaciously. Sir Clement Frobisher stood before the glass in his smoking-room setting his white tie. Over his shoulder he could see the dark, smileless face of Lopez looking in. "What do you want here to-night?" he asked. "What are you thinking about me?" "I’d give a good round sum—if I had it—to know what you are thinking about," Lopez retorted. "Money isn’t worth it. I was wondering if I really looked like a waiter, after all."