snake on a log," as Charlie had said,
take it in their hands and talk of it. The jeweller was expressing
confidentially a belief that it had once been set with real stones, and
Hilary was privately having a sudden happy thought, when Flora and
Adolphe came up only in time to hear the goldsmith's statement of its
present poor value.

"But surely," said Kincaid, "this old jewellery lying all about it
here--."

"That? that's the costliest gift in the Bazaar!"

Irby inquired whose it was, Anna called it anonymous, and Flora,
divining that the giver was Anna, felt herself outrageously robbed. As
the knife was being laid back in place she recalled, with odd interest,
her grandmother's mention of the devil, and remembered a time or two
when for a moment she had keenly longed for some such bit of steel;
something much more slender, maybe, and better fitting a dainty hand,
but quite as long and sharp. A wave from this thought may have prompted
Anna's request that the thing be brought forth again and Flora allowed
to finger it; but while this was being done Flora's main concern was to
note how the jeweller worked the hidden spring by which he opened the
glass case. As she finally gave up the weapon: "Thank you," she sweetly
said to both Anna and Hilary, but with a meaning reserved to herself.

You may remember how once she had gone feeling and prying along the fair
woodwork of these rooms for any secret of construction it might hold.
Lately, when the house began to fill with secretable things of large
money value, she had done this again, and this time, in one side of a
deep chimney-breast, had actually found a most innocent-looking panel
which she fancied to be kept from sliding only by its paint. Now while
she said her sweet thanks to Anna and Hilary she could almost believe in
fairies, the panel was so near the store of old jewels. With the knife
she might free the panel, and behind the panel hide the jewels till
their scent grew cold, to make them her bank account when all the banks
should be broken, let the city fall or stand. No one need ever notice,
so many were parting with their gems perforce, so many buying them as a
form of asset convenient for flight. So good-night, old dagger and
jewels; see you again, but don't overdo your limited importance. Of the
weapon Flora had further learned that it was given not to the Bazaar but
to Anna, and of the jewels that they were not in that lottery of
everything, with which the