Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/55

Rh "Of course! The bracelet!"

"What bracelet?"

At this moment Maria-Teresa and Dick joined the group. Maria-Teresa, seeing her father laughing as he talked, felt quite sure that the mystery of the bracelet had already been cleared up.

"Thank you ever so much," she said, holding out the slim hand adorned by the heavy bracelet "You see, I wear it as a token of friendship."

"But I should never have permitted myself such a liberty," protested the young man, looking in amazement from one to the other.

"Are you serious? ... It really was not you?"

"No! ... But what does it all mean? ... And what a peculiar bracelet."

"Do you not recognize it?" laughed Maria-Teresa, still unconvinced. "It is, apparently, the Golden Sun bracelet which the Indian priests always send to the Bride of the Bun at the Interaymi.... And as you, I understand, were the originator of my nickname, I naturally supposed that, in spite of everything you heard, you bore no malice to the Virgin of the Sun."

"What a charming idea! I am only sorry," he added, "that it was not mine. I shall never