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It seemed to complain of being roused from sleep, when waking could give no promise of hope or pleasure. Twice Vanno rang, and then there came the sound of unlocking and unbolting. A handsome and very dark young woman of the peasant class looked out at him questioningly, with eyes of topaz under black brows that met in a straight line across her forehead.
"Topaz is not willing you should leave him, and neither am I. When you are older, his majesty, my father, will look after your fortunes. For the present you shall be a page." "Your highness!" protested the Lady Gertrude, "have you considered? The pages are of lofty birth. Will it not go hard with the peasant? Give him a purse and let him go."
Mine was twisted bands of platinum and gold, forming a knot to hold a cabuchon sapphire. His was a thin setting for seven stones, set in a straight row; diamond, emerald, amethyst, ruby, emerald, sapphire, topaz. "Yours is meant for a woman, and mine for a man," I said. "He got them out of the wrong bags. But they're both pretty, and so queer." "Will you shall we change?" he asked.
"Well, I can, and I cannot," said Mr. Ruby. "I am in a difficulty. I have in this house exactly what your lordship requires, but I have offered them to Lord Topaz, and I have not received his answer. We have instructions to inform his lordship of every very precious jewel that we obtain, and give him the preference as a purchaser.
The mosaic that covered the walls and ceilings was of gold and jewels, not porphyry and serpentine, such as delight the wondering visitor to Venice, but precious stones rubies, sapphires, emeralds, amethysts as richly purple as grape clusters, topaz as clear and mellow as honey. Behind a traceried grillwork lay heaped a mound of treasures such as no human eye will ever see again.
According to the pagans, agate and carnelian stimulate, topaz consoles, jasper cures languor, hyacinth drives away insomnia, turquoise prevents falls or lightens the shock, amethyst combats drunkenness. "Catholic symbolism, in its turn, takes over the precious stones and sees in them emblems of the Christian virtues.
In fact, one of the greatest charms of a watering-place, to me, is the facility one enjoys of understanding the whole game, which is somewhat concealed in the city. Watering-place life is a full dress parade of social weaknesses. We all enjoy a kind of false intimacy, an accidental friendship. Old Carbuncle and young Topaz meet on the common ground of a good cigar.
"There, Nat," said Uncle Joe, drawing his heavy gold watch out of the fob by its watered-silk ribbon with the handsomely chased gold key and large topaz seal at the end, "I shall give you that watch, my boy, for a keepsake. Take it, Nat, and put it in your pocket; keep it out of sight, my boy, till you have gone.
"Let us rest now, and in the morning Topaz will dance for you again." So all consented and escorted the strangers to the barn, where there was a clean, sweet hay-loft. The little dog remembered the night before, and whined under his breath and wagged his tail as he looked at Gabriel, as if begging the boy not to leave him. Gabriel understood, and patted the silky coat.
No one was ever more astonished than Lady St. Craye. Quite natural, the astonishment. Not overdone by so much as a hair's breadth. So he told her all about it, and she twisted her long topaz chain and listened with exactly the right shade of interest. He told her what Miss Voscoe had said at least most of it. "And I worry about Temple," he said; "like any school boy, I worry.
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