“Go and get that thing I told you to keep for me. Get it and take it to Judy.” Her voice was harsh as she issued the order, and I saw her turn a sardonic look down the table at Victoria. But nobody paid any attention to that. They were all watching Punch, expecting, of course, that he’d turn and leave the room. Instead, he walked straight toward Judy. His grandmother’s voice halted him. “Go and get it first,” she called. “Oh, I have it here in my pocket,” said Punch. And he pulled out, on the words, the same rather disgraceful handkerchief in which he’d exhibited the necklace to us at the lunch table. I stopped watching him then, and turned my eyes, once more, on Judy. And, pearls or no pearls, she was the one to watch. The first look that flashed into her face when she saw what her brother was bringing her was one of an irrepressible disgust. She had damned the necklace, before, and this look of hers damned it now. That was gone, of course, in an instant, and by the time the others had turned to look at her, she had ironed out her face into a perfectly correct expression of pleasure over the receipt of a rather overwhelming gift--surprise and delight beautifully mingled. She lifted the thing daintily from Punch’s outrageous handkerchief, felt for the ends, and fastened it around her neck. I saw her fingers pause suddenly over the clasp, not so much as if they were baffled by it, but as if all the activities of her body had been, for an instant, frozen. Another instant and she had fastened the clasp, turned away from the table, and was coming down the length of the room toward her grandmother. She passed my chair on the way, but she had no eyes for me in that moment. The girl’s face was transfigured, her eyes were shining like stars. I can’t help it if I am banal, it’s what they were shining like. I heard her catch her breath in something like a sob as she walked by. “Gran, you darling!” she cried. And rather to Mrs. Corbin’s astonishment I think, she bent and kissed her squarely on her old mouth before the old woman had time to turn her cheek. “Are they _really_ mine?” Judy demanded. “Do you mean you’ve _given_ them to me?” “They belong to you, and to no one else,” Mrs. Corbin said. “Here! Give Ethelbert Smith a look at them. He knew them long before you were born, or your father, either.” The girl turned to him dutifully, leaning forward so that they swung away from her breast. I saw old Mr. Smith touch them with the tips of his fastidious fingers, and then I looked at Victoria. She wasn’t a beautiful sight. The change in color of her face had made the make-up blotchy, and her eyes were as hard as stones. I’m sure she wasn’t breathing. But old Mr. Smith’s voice came out suave and untroubled. “The Corbin necklace is one of the most beautiful strings of pearls I know, my dear. And your young neck is worthy of it. I wish you happiness.”