With a great settlement, such as this ambitious woman
could manage, the girl could be a duchess.
The marriage to Lord Eckhart in the diplomatic service, who would
one day be a peer of England, had been a lure dangled
unavailingly before her, until that night, when, on his return
from India, he had carried her off her feet with his amazing
incredible sacrifice. It was the immense idealism, the immense
romance of it that had swept her into this irrevocable thing.
She got up now, swiftly, as though she would again realize how
the thing had happened and stooped over the table above the heap
of jewels. They were great pigeon-blood rubies, twenty-seven of
them, fastened together with ancient crude gold work. She lifted
the long necklace until it hung with the last jewel on the table.
The thing was a treasure, an immense, incredible treasure. And
it was for this - for the privilege of putting this into her
hands, that the man had sold everything he had in England - and
endured what the gossips said - endured it during the five years
in India - kept silent and was now silent. She remembered every
detail the rumor of a wild life, a dissolute reckless life, the
gradual, piece by piece sale of everything that could be turned
into money.
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