Elizabeth's Diamonds

OWEN OLIVER

HEN I was introduced to Elizabeth I didn't know who she was; and we talked for two hours—at least she did—and decided to be friends. When I found out that she was the daughter of old Smith, the diamond millionaire, I didn't think that it mattered. Afterwards I found that it did. So I settled to go away before I made a fool of myself. She wasn't the sort of girl to give herself away, and I wasn't the sort of fellow to ask her to.

I thought I might as well have a good time till I went. So I met her as often as I could. I didn't tell her that I was going till the last night, for fear she might ask questions. Then I mentioned it casually when we were sitting out a dance. She was wearing some pink roses that I had sent her, and she looked—how I thought I should remember. I thought I should remember the valse that the band was playing too.

"By the way, Miss Elizabeth," I said, "I'm going abroad to-morrow."

She raised her eyebrows ever so little.

"By the way," she mocked, "when are you coming back?"

"I'm not coming back," I told her.

"Why?" she asked. She spoke as if she only inquired because she was obliged to. I felt a bit sore that she didn't say that she was sorry, because we'd been pretty chummy.

"I gather that my doings don't interest you," I said shortly.

She brushed her hair back with one hand, and gave me one of her sharp looks. She and her father always made me feel as if they could see through a brick wall.

"And I gather that mine interest you," she retorted. She shut her mouth with a snap—just like old Smith docs—and fixed me with her eyes; and I knew that we'd got to have it out. So I didn't beat about the bush.

"Yes," I owned. "That's it."

She looked across the conservatory and moved her lips in and out—it's another trick of her father's. Then she turned to me and flushed a little. I'd never seen her do that before.

"You needn't go," she told me.

I caught my breath and felt as if the world were turning too fast for me.

"You don't mean that you—that you care for—for a fellow like me, Elizabeth?" I said.

She made a funny little sound in her throat.

"I mean that," she declared. "I don't suppose I would, if I could help it; but I can't—" She touched my arm quickly. "I can't!"

"When I go," I said, "and it isn't because I don't care a lot, dear girl, but because I do, you'll be able to help it."

"You're not going," she said in her positive way—like old man Smith. "I want you."

"Don't tempt a fellow beyond endurance," I begged. "I—I oughtn't to have told you, but I'm not clever like you are, dear girl, and I thought you didn't care, and—it's good-by, and—and God bless you, Elizabeth!"

I rose; but she rose too, and put her arm through mine; and I lost my senses for a few moments. Then I held her at arm's length.

"You're not so sensible as I thought, Elizabeth," I said.

"I'm sensible enough to know what I want," she assured me. "I generally get it. You ask father if I don't!"

I groaned at the mention of her father.

"There'll be an awful row, if I ask him!" I said.

"There'll be a worse row, if you don't!" she declared, with a toss of her head. "Come along to the telephone. I'm going to hear you cancel your passage!"

So I told him; and there was a row. He called me everything under the sun, and refused his consent flatly and finally. When I told Elizabeth she marched me back to him, and informed him that we could do without his consent; and he informed her that in that case we could do without his money, for he wouldn't give her a penny. He repeated the statement several times, in a very forcible manner.

"I've said it," he concluded, banging his fist on the table, "and you've never known me to break my word, Elizabeth."

"And I've said that I will marry him," Elizabeth replied, "and you've never known me to break mine."

They stared at each other for a full minute. The curious thing was that they looked just alike, though one was a plain old man, and the other a good-looking young girl.

"Well," said Elizabeth at last, "we needn't be bad friends about it. Don't give your unbreakable word to do anything else that you'll be sorry for, dad."

The old man grinned at her with a kind of grudging admiration.

"No," he agreed. "No. We won't be bad friends, Elizabeth. I've given you your choice between him and my money. It's a fair offer, and neither of us can complain."

"It's a fair offer," Elizabeth agreed, "and I shan't complain."

"The money's good money," the old man remarked, "and I made it for you. The man's a fool, or a— No, I'll give him his due. He's a fool! "

"Ah!" said Elizabeth. "But I'm not, dad! I'll have the—good man! I'll have the good money too, if you don't mind! Come along, George." We went.

"Look here, dear girl," I said, when we were out of the room. "Your father's right. I mustn't let you marry me."

Elizabeth faced me squarely. Her obstinate little chin stuck out, just like her father's.

"If you don't," she said, "I will go away and never touch his money. That's my unbreakable word. And, what's more, I'll"

"Elizabeth," I interrupted, "don't give your unbreakable word to do anything more that you'll be sorry for! You shan't be sorrier than I can help, dear girl. We shall be poor, but"

"Indeed we shan't!" she declared; "we're going to have that money. It's mine really, and he'd rather me have it; and I like money."

"He'll never give it to you," I warned her.

"Of course not. I shall have to get it out of him in a square business deal."

"What sort of a deal?" I asked.

"Diamonds, of course! He doesn't deal in anything else."

"Diamonds!" I laughed. "You're pretty clever, Elizabeth; but you aren't clever enough to get the best of your father in that line. There isn't much that he doesn't know about diamonds."

"Exactly!" She nodded. "That's our chance. He thinks there isn't anything that he doesn't know about them. So, if we can find out one little thing that he doesn't we shall catch him. I've been thinking. Wasn't Professor Knowles your teacher? The man who tried to manufacture diamonds?"

"He did it," I explained; "but they were only tiny little scraps of things. They weren't worth as much as it cost to make them."

"But they would be if he could make bigger ones."

"Yes, but he can't."

He might if he tried."

He says it's impossible because— I'm hanged if I remember the reason. I don't think I ever understood the business really; but he was positive about it; and he's always right."

"What a horrible man! You must introduce me to him."

"He doesn't care about women," I objected. "He'll make a fuss if I propose it."

Elizabeth laughed at me.

"Nothing to the fuss I shall make if you don't," she said.

She isn't so terrible as she makes out; but I wanted to please her, and I thought I'd like him to see what a nice wife I was going to have. So I called on old Knowles the next day, and he was very pleased to see me. I don't know why he liked me, because he said I was the worst pupil he ever had; but he did. He grumbled at first, and muttered about "chattering women" and "waste of time"; but when I told him that Elizabeth was going to marry me he said he should be interested to see her. He had a theory about the attraction of opposites. So I suppose he thought that she ought to be very clever! She is of course.

They made friends directly and talked and talked about diamonds till I was sick of it, and went out to smoke a cigarette. When I came back they had gone from the study to the laboratory and were inspecting the diamond-making machine. Elizabeth was quite excited, and he was chuckling.

"Miss Smith has made a very curious suggestion to me, George," be said; "a very curious suggestion. She thinks we could increase the size of the diamonds; and upon my word, I believe we could!" He rubbed his hands furiously. "I've been using the wrong apparatus it seems. Well, well!"

"We can flood the world with them and ruin every diamond merchant," she declared.

"What's the good of that?" I protested. "It won't make us any better off to ruin other people."

"True," the professor agreed. "True! But if diamond merchants in general, and Mr. Smith in particular, wish to avoid ruin, they must make certain other people better off—you two young people in fact. Now do you understand?"

"Ye—es," I said; "but I don't know if it's quite—quite the straight thing, you know."

"Nonsense!" Elizabeth cried. "The professor and I have a perfect right to make diamonds, if we please. If father chooses to buy us off it's his affair; and his money is mine by rights, and I warned him. I'll speak to him about it, professor."

"Very well, my dear," the professor agreed. "Very well. If you do your part I'll do mine. I suppose—" He looked doubtfully at me. "I suppose you haven't told George about the—the process?"

"Certainly not," Elizabeth said. "George is not a business man. He's—George!" She patted my arm. "I'm going to be the business partner."

"Exactly," the professor agreed. "Exactly; and a very good partner too." He evidently liked Elizabeth. He is a sensible old chap!

She spoke to old Smith about it that evening, when I was there. He hadn't warned me off his premises as I expected. He snapped his fingers at her and laughed.

"I don't care that for your diamonds," he told her. "Go and make them, and don't talk nonsense. If you could do it you could make more out of them than I could pay, as you ought to know."

"I do know," she told him coolly, "and, if it rested with me, I would do it; but the professor has scruples about ruining the diamond trade, and only wants to make enough to give George and me a start, since you won't. Well, I've given you the first offer, though you don't deserve it. Since you won't take it, I'll go to Hulder. He'll make us an offer."

Hulder was the old man's great rival, and he hated him like poison, as Elizabeth knew. He tried to put her off going to him, but she wouldn't be put off; and finally he agreed to witness the experiments. He came to the professor's laboratory one afternoon, and brought a couple of his experts. They were very supercilious at first; but they changed their tone when the professor set his apparatus to work, and produced some tiny little diamonds like pins' heads.

"They're diamonds right enough," one of them owned; "but they're no use for an3rthing but setting in cheap rings. We wouldn't give you two dollars apiece for them; and it costs more than that to produce them, I take it."

"They won't interfere with my business," the old man added. "I don't deal in toy jewelry! They're very interesting, professor; but there's no money in them."

"But suppose he can make them bigger?" Elizabeth asked.

"I'll tell you when I've seen him make them," the old man answered coolly.

"You shall!" said Elizabeth; and she helped the professor connect up some fresh apparatus and retorts. They looked the same as those he had shown me years before that didn't make real diamonds, but crystals that seemed like them for a few minutes and then melted away. They were so cold that they burned you—at least that's how it felt—and you had to hold them in a special sort of wadding.

We sat and watched the apparatus for a quarter of an hour. The professor kept turning taps and things and Elizabeth helped him. She had learned more about it in a couple of days than I had learned in a couple of years, and she looked very scientific in a big apron thing with a lot of pockets filled with rods and tweezers and chemicals. Presently they squeezed out a glassy lump about as big as a pigeon's egg; and Elizabeth wrapped it in woolly stuff, and held it while it cooled—or uncooled.

"It's a rose diamond in the rough," she stated.

"Until it evaporates," the second expert suggested, with a superior smile.

"It won't evaporate," Elizabeth predicted.

After a few minutes she peeped into the wool, and touched the thing with a gloved finger. Then she touched it with her bare hand and said it was all right.

"Now you can inspect it," she suggested, and handed it to her father and he handed it to the experts.

They waved it about in the air and looked at it. Then they examined it carefully through lenses and with a microscope. Then they tested it with chemicals and grunted. Then they trimmed it up with a little wheel and some paste stuff. Elizabeth told me that this was made of small diamonds, because nothing else was hard enough to work them. At last they put it down and nodded at each other, and muttered to old Smith.

"Well," he pronounced, "it's a rose diamond. It may be worth five hundred dollars or it may not. It depends on how it cuts. It's not big enough to matter to me.

"I can make larger ones," the professor declared, rubbing his hands. "Much larger ones. And any quantity of them. Thousands and thousands!"

"Then," said old Smith, "you can corner the market in rose diamonds. Make a few and you'll do very well. Make too many and you'll ruin the market. It doesn't matter to me. I deal in brilliants."

"I can make brilliants," said the professor, with a tremendous chuckle.

"Make them," said old Smith curtly. "It's no use talking."

Elizabeth and the professor set the apparatus going again, and we waited another quarter of an hour, while the professor tried to explain his formula to old Smith, and old Smith tried to explain the diamond market to the professor. I don't know if they made each other understand. They didn't make me! I nearly went to sleep; and the experts went and looked out of the window and yawned; and Elizabeth ran about turning taps and stirring things up with little rods. At last she called the professor, and they pulled a lot of levers and squeezed out another glassy lump. Elizabeth declared that it was a brilliant and smuggled it up in wool, and wouldn't let anyone peep at it.

"This is mine," she said, "isn't it, professor?"

"Yes, my dear," he agreed. "Yes."

"Give it to me," old Smith growled. "I'll hold it;" and she handed him the little bundle of wool.

"You mustn't open it for three minutes," she told him, "or it will be spoiled."

He gave it three minutes by his watch.

Then he unwrapped it, and they examined it as before. They pronounced it a brilliant of the first order, and probably worth two thousand dollars.

"Umph!" said old Smith. "You've done me. How long are you going to give me to sell out the stuff that I've got on hand?"

"Not a day, dad," said Elizabeth. "It will be in all the papers to-morrow, so you can prepare for a slump—unless we do business."

"Look here, Elizabeth," I remonstrated, "it's a bit rough on your father."

The old man turned on me savagely.

"Business is rough," he said, "and you're a fool. Shut up!"

So I shut up, and he turned to the professor.

"What are your terms?" he asked.

The professor waved his hand at Elizabeth.

"Miss Smith is the business manager of the firm," he stated, and the old man turned to her.

"Well, Elizabeth?" he asked; and she considered, touching her lip with her finger.

"Well, dad," she said, "the professor isn't a business man. He doesn't care about flooding the market and ruining trade. That's why he hasn't done it before. You can square him if you can square me."

"What do you want?"

"I want just what I should have had if I hadn't insisted on marrying George It's my own money really, because I'm your daughter; and you ought to want me to have it; and I expect you do—you needn't grunt! You can do it without going back on your word, because it isn't giving, but paying. It's a matter of business."

The old man nodded slowly; and half grinned and half frowned.

"That's right," he assented. "I'll buy the thing on those terms."

"Oh, dear, no! " said Elizabeth. "There's no buying. The professor isn't going to have you flood the market. If you agree the 'thing' won't be used, that's all."

"Umph! Am I to take your word for that? And the professor's?"

"We'll take yours," said Elizabeth,

"Very well." He waved his hand at the experts, and they went. They laughed as they closed the door.

"Thank you, dad," Elizabeth said, and kissed him. "Now be nice!" She jerked her head toward me. She always wanted us to be friends.

The old man nodded and took my arm and walked out with me, and marched me away from the others.

"Now look here, young man," he said. "I'm fairly beat, and I bear no malice. In fact I like you; and of course I like that pig-headed girl of mine. What I'm going to say to you is for her good. Just bear that in mind.

"She's a clever girl, and she's a good girl; and in her way she's an affectionate girl. But I don't mind if a girl is all the angels rolled into one—and my girl isn't all angel, as you'll find out—it isn't her place to rule the universe. It isn't good for the universe—which I don't care about—and it isn't good for her—which I do! You're going to be her husband, and you've got to boss her. She'll be a discontented, unhappy woman if you don't. Never mind if she's right and you're wrong. You boss her! It's what women like."

"Ye—es," I said. "I think—upon my word I think you're right—but it won't be easy to boss Elizabeth; and I don't know that I'm fit to, either. She's so frightfully clever"

"Clever!" cried the old man scornfully. "Why she's a perfect fool where you're concerned! If you tell her that a thing's wrong and she's not to do it, she'll bounce and fume and swear that she will; but she won't!"

"Oh!" I said. "If it were wrong—why, of course she wouldn't want to do it"

"Would you let her if she did?" the old man persisted.

"Of course not," I said. "Unless she persuaded me that it wasn't wrong."

Old Smith laid his hand on my arm.

"Then you're all right," he said. "That's just the one point she can't manage you on!"

Elizabeth and I were married a few months later. Old Smith set us up very handsomely, and we got on very well with him. We got on capitally with each other, and I thought that living with Elia»beth sharpened me up a bit.

We had been married six months when we had the professor to dinner. When Elizabeth and he were talking and laughing about the diamond machine he let something slip. I didn't say anything before him, and they thought I didn't take it in; but I did.

When he had gone I took Elizabeth by the arm and led her into the drawing room.

"Elizabeth," I said, "you cheated your father about those diamonds."

She turned a bit pale, though she tossed her head.

"It was—business," she said. "You see"

"No," I said, "I don't see; and I won't see. So it's no use arguing."

She stared at me, and opened her mouth to speak, but didn't.

"The crystals that the professor made," I went on, "weren't diamonds. Thy evaporated in the wool. You put the real diamonds in beforehand. It was cheating."

"If you'll listen to me—" she began.

"I won't," I asserted. "It was cheating."

"It was only father," she protested; "and it was my money by rights; and I don't care."

"I do," I told her.

She looked at me for a long time.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Tell your father and give up the money," I said. "That's all."

Elizabeth gave a little laughing scream, and caught hold of me.

"You're going to keep me?" she cried.

"Why," I said. "Of course!"

"Then I don't care," she asserted, "except for father. He will be so sorry that—that—" She blinked a little.

"That you did it," I suggested; and she wiped her eyes and stamped her foot.

"You are stupid!" she said. "He'll be sorry that I've been found out; and that he can't give me his money. If you understood it properly"

"Now, look here, Elizabeth," I said, "I understand it my own way; and I never shall understand it any other way. You won't get round me by any of your cleverness; and you may as well give it up."

"George," she said calmly, "I give it up. You may kiss me!"

And I kissed her, and she didn't argue another word!

Women are curious creatures, and I believe old Smith was right about them.

I went around to her father's office, and burst my way through the clerks into his private office. He said he had no time to talk to me, but I sat down and told him I'd wait till he had. That seemed to please him, and he laid down his pen and chuckled.

"What's it about? " he asked.

"Diamonds," I said.

"What diamonds?"

"Those the professor made," I said. "He didn't make them really."

"Of course he didn't," he said. "Your hussy of a wife—my hussy of a daughter—changed them in the wool."

"And—you—knew!" I gasped.

He nodded slowly.

"And I knew you didn't," he said. "So you needn't worry about that."

"I don't," I said. "It is Elizabeth's doing it that—that I worry about."

The old man moved his lips in and out—like Elizabeth—and played with a ruler.

"Of course," I apologized, "she thought it was only—only business."

"No," said old Smith. "No. She didn't. She knew she oughtn't to have done it; but women have curious ideas about such things. I didn't want to see them grow on her. That's why I spoke to you as I did afterwards. Still she wouldn't do business like that with anyone else, if I know my girl. She cheated me because she knew I'd be glad to be cheated—anything—to be able to give her my money. Go home and tell her that you understand. She—she'll have a nasty little ache, if she fancies that you think badly of her, and—and—" He turned and poked the fire furiously—"I'm growing an old man."

"She'll be all right with me, sir," I said; "and I'll make her understand about you too; and she'll be jolly pleased with you!"

She was; and when I had finished telling her, she put on her hat and went straight round to hug him. She brought him back to lunch, and caught us one by each arm.

"Elizabeth's diamonds!" she announced.