"Bob and you are very nice, but you're sometimes obvious," Flora rejoined. "However, I'm not jealous, and if the pearls are small, they stand for much." "These stand for endurance and bold adventure. I think Bob did not get them easily." "That would not matter to Bob," said Flora. "But I wonder what they cost the others, the dark-skinned men who found them on the sands beneath the Caribbean. Pearls, you know, sometimes stand for tears." She moved from the glass, for the room was filling, and smiled as she resumed: "I don't know why I indulge a morbid sentiment when I'm happy. You will never have much grounds to cry for Bob." They went down a passage and found their places in the stalls. The house was full and Marston had engaged such seats as he could get. Wyndham, Flora and Chisholm were in front; Mabel and Marston in the row behind. "_Macbeth!_" he said as he gave Mabel a program. "Rather curious; but I like the play. Kind of plot one can understand." "Why is it curious?" Mabel asked. "Don't you understand them all?" "Not like this," said Marston, with a touch of awkwardness. "The motto--or d'you call it the motive?--is plain from the start. 'Ambition that over-leaps itself,' if I'm quoting right." Mabel said nothing. Bob was not clever, but he was sometimes shrewd and she saw what was in his mind. This was easier because he looked uncomfortable. The poor fellow felt he had not been quite loyal to his friend. Then Mabel frowned. Perhaps Bob had seen clearly; there _was_ a parallel. The lights went out and when the curtain rose Marston tried to banish his disturbing thoughts and enjoy the play. He had seen it often, but the story gripped him with a force he had not felt before. All was well done. Pale flames played round the witches' cauldron, and there was something strangely suggestive about the bent figures that hovered about the fire and faded in the gloom. He had sometimes thought the witch-scene unnecessary, but now he felt its significance. In Shakespeare's days, men believed in witchcraft, and when one had been in Africa one owned there were powers that ruled the dark. Bob was quiet and listened, with his mouth firmly set. A line caught his notice: "Her husband's to Aleppo gone, the master of the Tiger." Marston had not thought much about this before, but he saw the strange, high-pooped old vessel, manned by merchant adventurers, plunge across the surges of the Levant. She was a type; there were always merchant adventurers, and he pictured _Columbine_ rolling on the African surf.