woman."

"You must not count me among the things that fade, though," laughed
Lena, as she handed him a tall glass of clinking fragrance. "I shan't
like you a bit if you do."

"Everything fades, the rose, the lady, even thought, which is after all
but a grub on the tree of truth. All, all fade."

"I wish you wouldn't talk that way," objected Lena. "You make me feel
quite creepy."

"Ah," said Ram Juna, "you love the things of to-day. To me the thought
that all is transitory is bliss. Is it not so?"

"Yes," said Lena, "I'm sure I like roses and jewels and iced minty stuff
to drink. And Ram Juna, I wish you would tell me the really-truly
history of your ruby. I've heard so many stories about it." He put up
his hand, detached the great jewel from its place and laid it in her
small outstretched palm.

"That is a mark of my confiding," he said. "There are few to whom I
would give to handle my treasure. It may truly be called a stone of
blood. Such angry storms of greed and passion, such murders of father by
son and husband by wife link their story to it. And now it rests at last
on the head of a man of peace. For how long? For how long?" Lena looked
at it with the eyes of fascination as it lay in her open hand.

"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
sc