iridescence, which is, as you doubtless know, an
optical illusion attributable to the intervention of rays of light
reflected from microscopic corrugations of the nacreous surface. But
for that our eye is to blame, not the pearl. See?"

The seated man did not reply; but another man on the speaker's right,
a large man, widest at the waist, leaned across the arm of his chair
to scrutinize the jewel. Its owner turned his throat for the
inspection, despite a certain grumness and crocodilian aggressiveness
in the man's interest.

"I like a diamond, myself," said the new on-looker, dropped back in
his chair, and met the eyes of the pearl's owner with a heavy glance.

"Tastes differ," kindly responded the wearer of the pearl. "Are you
acquainted with the language of gems?"

The big-waisted man gave a negative grunt, and spat bravely into the
fire. "Didn't know gems could talk," he said.

"They do not talk, they speak," responded their serene interpreter.
The company in general noticed that, with all his amiability of tone
and manner, his mild eyes held the big-waisted man with an
uncomfortable steadiness. "They speak not to the ear, but to the eye
and to the thought:

'Thought is deeper than all speech;
Feeling deeper than all thought;
Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.'"

The speaker's victim writhed, but the riveted gaze and an uplifted
finger pinioned him. "You should know--every one should know--the
language of gems. There is a language of flowers:

'To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.'

But the language of gems is as much more important than that of
flowers as the imperishable gem is itself more enduring than the
withering, the evanescent blossom. A gentleman may not with safety
present to a lady a gem of whose accompanying sentiment he is
ignorant. But with the language of gems understood between them, how
could a sentiment be more exquisitely or more acceptably expressed
than by the gift of a costly gem uttering that sentiment with an
unspoken eloquence! Did you but know the language of gems, your choice
would not be the diamond. 'Diamond me no diamonds,' emblems of pride--

'Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of humankind pass by.'

"Your choice would have been the pearl, symbol of modest loveliness.

'Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, u