‘What beasts they are!’ he muttered; ‘what cads! Thank God they’ll never be famous; they’re too mean! To fling their dirty spite at a woman like that! It’s disgusting! Wait till I get a chance; I’ll “review” their trash for them!’ And warmed by the prospect of this future vengeance, the ‘callow bird’ went home to roost. *CHAPTER IV* Some days after the war of words between Valdis and Aubrey Grovelyn at the ‘Bohemian,’ Delicia was out shopping in Bond Street, not for herself, but for her husband. She had a whole list of orders to execute for him, from cravats and hosiery up to a new and expensive ‘coach-luncheon-basket,’ to which he had taken a sudden fancy; and besides this, she was looking about in all the jeweller’s shops for some tasteful and valuable thing to give him as a souvenir of the approaching anniversary of their marriage day. Pausing at last in front of one glittering window, she saw a rather quaint set of cuff-studs which she thought might possibly answer her purpose, and she went inside the shop to examine them more closely. The jeweller, not knowing her personally, but judging from the indifferent way in which she took the announcement of his rather stiff prices, that she must be a tolerably rich woman, began to show her some of his most costly pieces of workmanship, hoping thereby to tempt her into the purchase of something for herself. She had no very great love for jewels, but she had for artistic design, and she gratified the jeweller by her intelligent praise of some particularly choice bits, the merits of which could only be fully recognised by a quick eye and cultivated taste. ‘That is a charming pendant,’ she said, taking up a velvet case, in which rested a dove with outspread wings, made of the finest diamonds, carrying in its beak the facsimile of a folded letter in finely-wrought gold, with the words, ‘_Je t’adore ma mie!_’ set upon it in lustrous rubies. ‘The idea is graceful in itself, and admirably carried out.’ The jeweller smiled. ‘Ah, that’s a very unique thing,’ he said, ‘but it’s not for sale. It has been made to special order for Lord Carlyon.’ A faint tremor passed over Delicia like the touch of a cold wind, and for a moment the jewels spread out on the glass counter before her danced up and down like sparks flying out of a fire, but she maintained her outward composure. And in another minute she smiled at herself, wondering why she had been so startled, for, of course, her husband had ordered this pretty piece of jewellery as a gift for her, on the very anniversary she was preparing to celebrate by a gift to him! Meanwhile the jeweller, who was of an open mind, and rather fond of confiding bits of gossip to stray customers, took the diamond dove out of its satin-lined nest, and held it up in the sunlight to show the lustre of the stones.