her
personal charm, had now begun to impress me.

"Madam," said I, feeling in my pocket; "no heathen has much of this
world's goods. All my possessions would not furnish one of these rooms.
I can not offer gems, as does Senor Yturrio--but, would this be of
service--until to-morrow? That will leave him and me with a slipper
each. It is with reluctance I pledge to return mine!"

By chance I had felt in my pocket a little object which I had placed
there that very day for quite another purpose. It was only a little
trinket of Indian manufacture, which I had intended to give Elisabeth
that very evening; a sort of cloak clasp, originally made as an Indian
blanket fastening, with two round discs ground out of shells and
connected by beaded thongs. I had got it among the tribes of the far
upper plains, who doubtless obtained the shells, in their strange savage
barter, in some way from the tribes of Florida or Texas, who sometimes
trafficked in shells which found their way as far north as the
Saskatchewan. The trinket was curious, though of small value. The
baroness looked at it with interest.

"How it reminds me of this heathen country!" she said. "Is this all that
your art can do in jewelry? Yet it _is_ beautiful. Come, will you not
give it to me?"

"Until to-morrow, Madam."

"No longer?"

"I can not promise it longer. I must, unfortunately, have it back when I
send a messenger--I shall hardly come myself, Madam."

"Ah!" she scoffed. "Then it belongs to another woman?"

"Yes, it is promised to another."

"Then this is to be the last time we meet?"

"I do not doubt it."

"Are you not sorry?"

"Naturally, Madam!"

She sighed, laughing as she did so. Yet I could not evade seeing the
curious color on her cheek, the rise and fall of the laces over her
bosom. Utterly self-possessed, satisfied with life as it had come to
her, without illusion as to life, absorbed in the great game of living
and adventuring--so I should have described her. Then why should her
heart beat one stroke the faster now? I dismissed that question, and
rebuked my eyes, which I found continually turning toward her.

She motioned to a little table near by. "Put the slipper there," she
said. "Your little neck clasp, also." Again I obeyed her.

"Stand there!" she said, motioning to the opposite side of the table;
and I did so. "Now," said she, looking at me gravely, "I am going with
you to see this man whom you call your chief--this old and ugl