ne big--some one--" He
frowned straight before him. He shook his head and smiled. "There was a
chap in England, Farrell Wand."

The name floated in a little silence.

"He kept them guessing," Harry went on recalling it; "did some great
vanishing acts."

"You mean he could take things before their eyes without people knowing
it?" Flora's eyes were wide beyond their wont.

"Something of that sort. I remember at one of the Embassy balls at St.
James' he talked five minutes to Lady Tilton. Her emeralds were on when
he began. She never saw 'em again."

Flora began to laugh. "He must have been attractive."

"Well," Harry conceded practically, "he knew his business."

"But you can't rely on those stories," Clara objected.

"You must this time," he shook his tawny head at her; "I give you my
word; for I was there."

It seemed to Flora fairly preposterous that Harry could sit there
looking so matter-of-fact with such experiences behind him. Even Clara
looked a little taken aback, but the effect was only to set her more
sharply on.

"Then such a man could easily have taken the ring in the Maple Room this
afternoon? You think it might have been the man himself?"

His broad smile of appreciation enveloped her. "Oh, you have a scent
like a bloodhound. You haven't let go of that once since you started. He
could have done it--oh, easy--but he went out eight, ten years ago."

"Died?" Flora's rising inflection was a lament.

"Went over the horizon--over the range. Believe he died in the
colonies."

"Oh," Flora sighed, "then I shall have to fancy he has come back again,
just for the sake of the Chatworth ring. That wouldn't be too strange.
It's all so strange I keep forgetting it is real. At least," she went on
explaining herself to Harry's smile, "it seems as if this must be going
on a long way off, as if it couldn't be so close to us, as if the ring I
wanted so much couldn't really be the one that has disappeared." All
the while she felt Harry's smile enveloping her with an odd,
half-protecting watchfulness, but at the close of her sentence he
frowned a little.

"Well, perhaps we can find another ring to take the place of it."

She felt that she had been stupid where she should have been most
delicate. "But you don't understand," she protested, leaning far toward
him as if to coerce him with her generous warmth. "The Chatworth ring
was nothing but a fancy I had. I never thought of it for a moment as an
engagement r