“There you express the sum and substance of all philosophy!” he said. “Plato himself could go no further! All the same, there’s an _IS_ about you that _WASN’T_! What do you make of _that_? And if you haven’t been doing anything to yourself what has our friend Féodor Dimitrius been doing to you?” The question, though put suddenly, did not throw her off her guard. She met it with clear, upraised eyes and a look of wonder. “Why, what on earth should he do?” she asked, lightly. “He’s giving me quite a pleasant time in Switzerland--that’s all!” “Oh! That’s all, eh?” repeated Chauvet, baffled for the moment. “Well, I’m glad you are having a pleasant time. Judging by your looks, Switzerland agrees with you. But Dimitrius is a queer fellow. It’s no use falling in love with him, you know!” She laughed very merrily. “My dear Professor! You talk as if I were a girl, likely to ‘moon’ and sentimentalise over the first man that comes in my way! I’m not young enough for that sort of thing.” The Professor stuck his hands deep in his pockets and appeared to meditate. “No--perhaps not,” he said. “But experience has taught me that people fall in love at the most unexpected ages. I have seen a child of four,--a girl,--coquetting with a boy of seven,--and I have also seen an old gentleman of seventy odd making himself exceedingly unpleasant by his too rabid admiration of a married lady of forty. These things _will_ occur!” “But that’s not love!” laughed Diana, seating herself in a deep easy chair opposite to him. “Come, come, Professor! You know it isn’t! It’s nonsense!--and in the case of the old gentleman, very distressing nonsense! Now, show me that jewel you spoke of the other day--one that I’ve never seen--it’s called the Eye of something or somebody----” “The Eye of Rajuna,” said Chauvet, solemnly, “a jewel with the history of a perished world behind it. Now, Miss May, you must not look at this remarkable stone in a spirit of trifling--it carries, compressed within its lustre, the soul’s despair of a great Queen!” He paused, as if thinking,--then went to an iron-bound safe which stood in one corner of the room, and unlocked it. Fumbling for a minute or two in its interior recesses, he presently produced a curious case made of rough hide and fastened with a band of gold. Opening it, a sudden flash of light sparkled from within--and Diana raised herself in her chair to look, with a little exclamation of wonderment. The extraordinary brilliancy of the jewel disclosed was like nothing she had ever seen--the stone appeared to be of a deep rose colour, but in its centre there was a moving point, as of blood-red liquid. This floating drop glittered with an unearthly lustre, and now and again seemed to emit rays as of living light. “What a marvellous gem!” Diana murmured. “And how beautiful! What do you call it?--a ruby or a coloured diamond?”