Then Mr. Lucanaster, even as he told Mrs. Chris tenderly that he had had what he called 'ripplin' time' in her company, and that he meant to dream of it, knew that before he granted himself the luxury of sleep, he must think over more important matters than his relations with her, and find out how far he had committed himself in regard to them. For he had been taken by surprise that day. Without a word of warning, the detectives had consulted him, as an expert in pearls, regarding the four found in Miss Leezie's house. As usual when taken aback--for he was not a villain of the first water--he had temporised with the question. Second thoughts, however, had shown him that by failing at once to admit that he held the remainder of the string for Jehân, he had tied his own hands from doing so in the future. Therefore, if the latter was called upon to produce them, he had only two alternatives. He must either deny possession, or yield it before that possession was publicly asserted at all. In either case he lost his hold on the emerald. So, partly for this reason, partly because he was not prepared to go to the extremes of villainy, he felt that he regretted having touched the business at all. Jehân himself, however, had no conception that his position in regard to Mr. Lucanaster had altered, except by his own possession of the ring. The presence of that on his finger, indeed, would have given him perfect confidence, but for the fact that it brought with it a strange recrudescence of responsibility. Jehân with the ring and Jehân without it were two different men. He found himself, even as he wept--and he did weep copiously and openly over little Sa'adut's loss--thinking of another heir, of vague possibilities and powers. His very determination to mete out proper punishment to Sobrai grew in dignity; the necessity for it became more of a duty, less of a revenge. And all this made him defer, till the last minute, any communication with Mr. Lucanaster. Time enough to let him know that the ring was really within reach, when the police should ask for the production of the pearls. That might be never; and then, indeed, Jehân felt he would be free to make bargains. Meanwhile, the safest place in which to keep the treasure, seeing that for all he knew Noormahal might have discovered its abstraction, and set her agents to recover it, was his own finger. So there it remained day and night.