With years Ellen's temper did not become less difficult; but Joan was at a loss to account for its present manifestation. "Of course you are," she murmured soothingly. "But I don't believe you've seen the lovely present he's brought you all the way from--Shanghai, is it, this time?" Ellen drew near, fascinated by the shimmering length of purple crêpe. "Silk! For me? Shucks, what would I be doin' with stuff like that? It's much too fine for the likes of me!" "Nothing is too fine for the likes of you," replied Nikolai, with quiet sincerity. "Why, you'll be perfectly grand in it, Nellen, with the Battenberg collar and cuffs!" She muttered, mollified, "I don't know as a single woman ought to accept such things off a gentleman." "It's all right if her chaperon says she may," reassured Joan, keeping a straight face. But when the old woman had gone, she said to her friend, "I'm ashamed of her, Stefan! I can't think what gets into her cranky old head!" "It is always so at first. I have to win her confidence afresh each time. I think the faithful soul regards me as a wolf menacing the safety of her sheepfold." "That's because you are what she calls a 'for'ner.'" "It's because I am a Jew. Few really practising Christians can find it in their hearts to trust a Jew." "But you're only half a Jew!" "You might as well say 'only half a negro,'" he remarked without bitterness. "It is the blood that counts, not the amount of it...." He had brought her the gray sapphires he once promised her, a long string of them with pearls between, and a tassel of pearls at either end. She exclaimed with pleasure, "What an exquisite jewel!" (She had learned more about such things than in the days when she secretly scorned her aquamarine because it was not set in diamonds.) "How the pearls bring out the color of the stones, and how wonderfully they match, Stefan!" "Do they?" He looked critically from the stones to her eyes. "Yes, they are darker now than the aquamarine. Shadows have come into them--The sapphires are better." She patted his hand. "It _is_ so nice to have somebody about again who notices whether I have eyes or not!" "Surely your Archibald notices?" "If he does he never mentions them! He would think it rather indelicate, like praising something of his own, you know." Nikolai smiled, gravely. "That is a very safe state for a husband to be in--I hope you do not take advantage of it, Joan?" She gave him a quick glance. "I wonder what you mean by that?" But Nikolai did not explain. He said instead, "I am sorry you have no children." She stiffened. Among her friends it had come to be understood that children were best not mentioned to Joan. There was a hidden bruise which time seemed to have left unhealed. Nikolai, however, chose not to heed the warning of her expression. "A home without children in it," he added, "seems to us wandering folk only half a home."