The Chinese Jewel/Chapter 10

FTER one glance to the room below Alice drew back. This watchfulness of Steele's was a part of his duty and necessary. And at that it was little to his liking and he yearned for the time when he could come out into the open. Though in one sense he would have been vastly content with the girl as a companion, in another he was glad when she said hastily:

“I just came to say good night. I'll not stay.”

And she was gone again as he in turn said “Good night,” and closed the door after her, returning himself soft-footedly to the trap.

To one with a key to the situation it became sufficiently clear. Reagan had set his heart on Marvella; he wanted her; he meant to have her. He saw in his path a young and likable millionaire; he must know that the millions would appeal tremendously to Marvella. Reagan's own hand was already lifted against those same millions; with that hand, as he brushed Carrington from his path and caught in the gold shaken from him, he would at the same time draw Marvella to him.

To be sure, there was one element which might possibly enter into the grim game of wits, blocking Reagan's game somewhat; namely, Marvella's heart. Was it possible that she had come to care not alone for the millionaire's millions, but for himself as well? That was very much to be doubted, since Marvella was scarcely the one to love anything under Heaven save herself. But the evening was to show this as well as other matters.

At present, King Reagan was playing the waiting game; perhaps he did not hold all of the necessary cards in his master hand yet, and it was his way to know where the cards were before he made his bet. As Steele had said, playing always a game full of risks, he made sure wherever certainty was possibly attainable.

Now, after that first intent look, he saw fit to appear lazily content with life as he found it, and to have nothing of weight upon his mind. He passed a few idle remarks with Marvella and Carrington, then stalked away to stand with his great head cocked to one side under an old Corot on the far wall; offered some other trifling remark, crossed to the piano, and sleepily played a few snatches of light music. Even with Reagan's mind wandering far afield, it was music whenever his powerful hands strayed up and down the keyboard. Then he yawned, and shaking himself like a great mastiff, said:

“You youngsters, I suppose, will jabber half the night? Well, you'll not miss me. In Rome, emulate the Romans; on the farm, observe the chickens. Good night, both.”

And off he went, humming the remaining fragment of the air he had broken off in.

As the door closed after him Marvella and Stephen Carrington seemed drawn closer together. Stephen, his excitement glowing in his eyes like a child's at Christmas time, caught up her hand.

“Now!” he said eagerly. “Now, Marvella!”

She laughed softly, and slowly withdrew her fingers from his clasp.

“You impulsive boy!” she chided. And then, flashing him a look in which lay all the lure and fascination of Marvella Nevil: “It isn't terribly improper, is it? For you and me, after all of the others have gone to bed, to be meeting again secretly like this? And you will promise to behave”

“By Heaven!” cried Stephen. Then he drew up and laughed also. “I'll be good,” he promised. “Now run, Marvella.”

She laid her finger prettily across her vivid lips by way of caution, whisked about, and ran as he had pleaded. On tiptoe, making no sound greater than the rustling of a light wind over the grass, she disappeared into the hall.

He waited as impatiently as Steele in the room above him. He took up a cigarette, lighted it, cast it away into the fireplace, and turned expectantly; Marvella had not been gone from him sixty seconds. And he was due to wait many another sixty seconds. Marvella plainly was not hurrying. After all, was this not one of the big moments in the life of an adventuress, and was she not aware of the fact and hence approaching it thoughtfully and without haste? In this was Marvella like King Tom Reagan; when it came to a show-down she liked to be sure that she held the cards.

At last Marvella had returned. Steele had not heard her; he could not see her, and yet he knew that she was again in the room down there with Carrington, perhaps poised just on the threshold. He knew from the look in Stephen's eyes.

“What miracle of a jewel it must be!” Stephen reflected. “To bring such a look into a man's eyes.”

But was it alone the Beauty of Burma at which Carrington stared?

Marvella came on until she stood in the middle of the room. During these few minutes Marvella, slim creature of a wonderful, radiant beauty, had slipped out of her dinner dress and gowned herself anew from the tip of her dainty satin slippers to the top of her head of pure gold hair. She looked a little pale, as from some suppressed excitement, but the pallor was infinitely becoming, and from the ivory face looked forth with the sparkle of new fire her great, childlike blue eyes. Her gown was of white, as simple in line as the unhidden curves beneath it. A vision in white, save for the vivid red of her mouth—and the glowing red of the jewel she wore on the middle of her white forehead. Where a tendril of her bright hair brushed the narrow fillet about her brow it seemed no less golden.

Slowly Marvella's cheeks warmed to the tide of triumph. She made a little gesture with her hand, from which, for once, all rings were banished. She looked more youthful than Marvella should rightly have looked; more innocent and ethereal. Her lips parted, her eyes shone.

“Do you—like it?” she whispered.

“Like—it?” repeated Carrington. Suddenly he put out his hands toward her pleadingly. “You—you are all that I can see! Marvella! Heavens, how there is but the one name in the world to suit you—Marvella! Like it? I love you!”

“And now that you see at last the Beauty of Burma”

“I see only the Beauty of the World! Marvella”

She laughed, ever so softly, the laugh of a woman who has won.

“You promised to behave. No, no!” She held him off tantalizingly. “Another step, Mr. Stephen Carrington, and I'll run away. And if you don't lift your eyes from my eyes—can't you see that you are confusing me?—to the Beauty of Burma I promise you both of us will whisk away.”

“Cruel!” cried Carrington.

She laid her finger across her lips, while her eyes laughed happily; then the same finger she lifted, pointing to the gem glowing upon her forehead. And at last Stephen's eyes lifted to the command.

Connoisseur in rare gems as he was, he had never looked on the like of the Pride of Burma. It was fully twice the size of any flawless ruby of which he had ever so much as heard. Its color, the deep, rare red of the perfect stone, looked as tender as pomegranate seeds, its fire seemed to ebb and flow like a fire in the wind, its radiance bespread the fair skin against which it lay so that it was as if the wonderful jewel actually tinted it with an overflow of its passionate red.

Now that again Marvella's cheeks were flushed, Carrington's paled.

“Marvella,” he said, laboring with his words, his enunciation slow but peculiarly clear, “I must have that ruby, You may name your price. And I must have you to wear it.” His fists clenched with an access of passion, “By Heaven, none but you shall wear it, none but you has the right.”

“Greedy!” She was playing with him now and in full confidence. “You would have it? And me? Pray, anything else, Mr. Stephen Carrington?”

There came a hurt look into the boy's eyes. He, at least, was in deadly earnest.

“Am I just a fool, aspiring for the stars?” he muttered.

In a flash Marvella's bearing changed.

“I—I did not mean to be cruel, Stephen.” Now she came close to him and put her hand once more on his arm. She raised her eyes wonderingly, abruptly seeming to have become afraid of herself and of him. “We have known each other such a little time!”

“But can't you see”

Again, eluding him, she was all gayety, tantalizing.

“The Beauty of Burma will brook no rival!” she announced in mock solemnity. “You have sent for her, sire. You must pay her all court or she will withdraw like the haughty queen she is. Or have you seen enough?”

“I could look at it all night,” he said, “if you were not here.”

“Shall I put it into your hand and go then?” She made as if to remove the golden thread that bound it, but he stayed her. “Listen, then,” she said swiftly, “you and I, oh, my friend, have in our hearts the love of the beautiful, the love of the most beautiful things which mother earth has stored away and hidden deep in her own bosom. Let us this once revel in beauty! Bring here your own prize gems and”—her eyes were suddenly like his own in their unhidden longing for the sight—“we will for a little give ourselves up to the worship of beauty.”

“You feel the appeal of jewels as I do!” cried Carrington. “They get into your blood, like wine. They're more wonderful than music and moonlight. You, too, know the divine madness of rare, priceless gems!”

Marvella probed at him with her great blue eyes.

“Bring them,” she said. “I have kept my promise. Bring them.”

“I will,” Carrington said, and hurried away.

Marvella stood looking after him, her look one of pure triumph. After a life of chance, of ups and downs and dangers, Carrington and his many millions were like ripe plums, hers for the picking. He closed a door softly; still she stood, that triumphant smile on her lips.

Again Steele knew that some one else had entered the room below, even before he saw who it was. For Marvella's expression altered swiftly. Her smile faded, she drew back, her hand went quickly to the red stone on her forehead.

“Leave it there. It becomes you.”