"It charms you like a serpent?" asked her companion, leaning forward
with indolent amusement. "You are true woman. You love the glitter.
Would you like to see others?"
"Have you others?" cried Lena. "Oh--oh, I should like to see them!" He
rose, made her a salaam of grace, parted the hedge once more and
disappeared only to return bringing in his hands a curious box of
carven ivory, which he set on the table between them and proceeded to
unlock with a key of quaint device.
Lena gave a cry of rapture and astonishment as the lid fell back. Ram
Juna laid his hand on her arm.
"Silence!" he commanded, "would it be well that the flippant public who
pass near at hand on the pavement should know that there are such
treasures in this thicket?"
"I did not know that there was so much splendor in the world," whispered
Lena in admiration.
"Rubies--all rubies! They were the stones beloved of my ancestors. This
dangled once on the neck of a maha-ranee, more beautiful than itself,
only, unfortunately, she lost her neck, murdered by a rival queen."
He twisted the string of gems about her arm, bare to the elbow, and Lena
gasped with pleasure.
"Let me add this bracelet--a serpent. See of curious carved gold the
scales, and the eyes again two wicked rubies to beguile men's souls. Yet
it becomes the arm, does it not? Look, at your pleasure, at the rest of
the box."
He pushed the case toward her and Lena began to finger its profuse
contents with occasional sighs of envious delight and glances at her
white flesh enhanced by its ornaments. Ram Juna sat in silence.
"How do you dare to carry such things around with you?" she asked.
"Not much longer," he answered with a shrug. "To me they are delusions
inappropriate. I see that is your thought. Is it not so? What have I to
do with necklaces and rings of princesses? I had forgotten that I had
them, until a chance thought recalled it. I had long since meant to sell
them and give the money to the great cause for which I labor. That is my
treasure, is it not? I shall never take them back to India. I must
hasten to get rid of them, for I purpose to return there at once."
"Why, are you going away?"
"To-morrow I leave this city. My work here is done. It is the last of
work. Hereafter I shall find some solitary spot and end my life in
meditations. And the rubies--I might give them away; but perhaps the
trifle I should receive for them would help the Brothers in their
service. I shall not expect or wish their value."
"Oh, I wish I might buy some of them!"