erved Madame
Wachner, "but I suppose they are worth more together than separately?"
she was still speaking in that thoughtful, considering tone.

"Oh, I don't know that," said Sylvia, smiling. "Each separate pearl is
worth a good deal, but still I daresay you are right, for these are
beautifully matched. I got them, by a piece of great luck, without having
to pay--well, what I suppose one would call the middle-man's profit! I
just paid what I should have done at a good London sale."

"And you paid?--seven--eight 'undred pounds?" asked Madame Wachner,
this time in English, and fixing her small, dark eyes on the fair
Englishwoman's face.

"Oh, rather more than that." Sylvia grew a little red. "But as I said
just now, they are always increasing in value. Even Mr. Chester, who did
not approve of my getting these pearls, admits that I made a good
bargain."

Through the open door she thought she heard Monsieur Wachner coming back
down the passage. So she suddenly took the pearls out of the other
woman's hand and clasped the string about her neck again.

L'Ami Fritz came into the room. He was holding rather awkwardly a little
tray on which were two cups--one a small cup, the other a large cup, both
filled to the brim with black coffee. He put the small cup before his
guest, the large cup before his wife.

"I hope you do not mind having a small cup," he said solemnly. "I
remember that you do not care to take a great deal of coffee, so I have
given you the small cup."

Sylvia looked up.

"Oh dear!" she exclaimed, "I ought to have told you before you made it,
Monsieur Wachner--but I won't have any coffee to-night. The last time I
took some I lay awake all night."

"Oh, but you must take coffee!" Madame Wachner spoke good-humouredly, but
with great determination. "The small amount you have in that little cup
will not hurt you; and besides it is a special coffee, L'Ami Fritz's own
mixture"--she laughed heartily.

And again? Sylvia noticed that Monsieur Wachner looked at his wife
with a fixed, rather angry look, as much as to say, "Why are you always
laughing? Why cannot you be serious sometimes?"

"But to-night, honestly, I would really rather not have any coffee!"

Sylvia had suddenly seen a vision of herself lying wide awake during long
dark hours--hours which, as she knew by experience, generally bring to
the sleepless, worrying thoughts.

"No, no, I will not have any coffee to-night," she repeated.

"Yes, yes,