as if she had a past. She was a widow from Johannesburg, not beautiful, but the kind of woman who would be looked at in a room before all the pretty women. Her brilliant, weary eyes wore an expression of having seen everything in the world worth seeing, and finding that nothing was worth having. Loree admired and intensely envied her air of “having lived,” and the cynical flavour of her speech. They had already exchanged smiles and fragments of conversation when meeting in the lounge and drawing-room, and Mrs Cork had told her that she was in Kimberley to consult a noted pedicurist about some trouble with her left foot.

Another person who interested Mrs Temple now entered the dining-room and sat down at a table a few yards away, with his chair so placed that there was nothing between him and an uninterrupted view of Loree except the little delicately shaded electric lamp. Very unobtrusively, he moved the light slightly aside. Immediately Loree experienced the same odd pricking in her blood as the rays of the diamond seemed to cause her. Only, she no longer felt that she was missing something, or that life was passing her by on the other side.

For three days he had deliberately courted her with a pair of fine, golden-brown eyes that contained melancholy, power, a whimsical reflective expression, and a whole world of admiration for Loree Temple. He was a dark, gracefully-built man with thick dark hair brushed back smoothly on his well-shaped head. Everything about him was right, from his hair to his shoes. He was the kind of man who could not make any mistake about dress, and gave distinction to anything he wore. His name was Quelch, and Loree was aware that he was a power in the hotel and in Kimberley.

The first day at lunch, when the heat was sizzling outside among the fernlike leaves of the pepper-trees and coming through the windows in almost visible waves—Mrs Temple’s red head had drooped rather like a poppy overtired by the sun, and she had fanned herself a little wearily with the menu-card. A low-spoken word at Quelch’s table and a shade of the outside verandah was moved by swift hands so that it darkened the window behind her without shutting off the air. A moment later, a huge block of ice standing in a deep tray of greenery miraculously appeared on the window-sill, and a fan daintily composed of lace and ivory lay at her elbow. In the evening, she found that beside her table a wooden tree had sprung up through the floor and blossomed into an electric fan whose zephyrs were for her exclusive refreshment. There were lovely flowers everywhere, but a silver bowl of deep-red roses distinguished her table from the others. There are some things you know for certain without knowing them for sure, as the saying is. Without any evidence, Loree was aware of Quelch’s responsibility for these delicate miracles. He was a power. He spoke, and things happened.

The roses were there again to-night, deep and red and dewy, as if they had been plucked in a misty valley and were still wet with the dawn.

As she left the table, she took one from the bowl and stuck it into the V of her gown. It was carelessly done, but her hands trembled a little and her veins thrilled again as if in answer to some magnetic current which, whether it came from a magic stone or from a man’s eyes, made her feel curiously alive and daring. There is no thrill like the thrill of playing with fire that may blaze out and consume you (but you won’t let it), or standing on the edge of a precipice where you might fall over (but you are not going to).

Betaking herself to the cool gloom of the verandah, where coffee was served, she sat down by Mrs Cork. Out in the garden spectral figures were drenching the trees and flowers with water after the cruel heat of the day, and the place was full of the scent of wet earth. Said Mrs Cork:

“I have been so dull all day. Not a thought but to lie perdue under my mosquito-curtains until the sun went down.”

“Do you dislike the heat?” said Loree. “I find it stimulating.”

The other woman considered her with heavily shadowed eyes.

“It flattens me out like a glass of spilled milk. You haven’t been here long enough for it to take toll of you, but it will—body, soul, and spirit.”

Loree laughed, secure in her fresh beauty. Besides, it felt very safe to be Pat Temple’s wife.

“I should be inclined to challenge that if I had come to stay. We are only out here on a trip.”

“You’re lucky. Africa is all right as long as you can get away from her. But you should not challenge her. Like Fate, you never know what she has up her sleeve.”

She sipped her coffee, looking moodily into the dark garden. Loree snatched this opportunity to scrutinise the diamond. It winked at her like a little demon with bluish-green eyes.

“Will you think me very inquisitive if I ask whether your diamond came out of the Kimberley mine?” she said.

Mrs Cork smiled indifferently.

“No: it is a Brazilian. Are you interested in diamonds?”

“They exercise a sort of fascination over me,” said Loree slowly. “Though I never thought about them much before.”

The other woman examined her thoughtfully.

“Yes: one does begin to think about them here. Kimberley is a wicked place.”

The statement gave Loree a sensation—not altogether disagreeable.

“It seems so quiet and peaceful.”

The other smiled cryptically.

“There is a mot current in South Africa with regard to the degree of wickedness to be found in different towns. It runs: ‘Kimberley, first prize; Cradock, second; Hell, highly recommended.’”

Loree could not help laughing, and at that moment Quelch sauntered out from the hall and stood in the light close beside them. Mrs Cork, lifting her voice slightly, addressed him.

“Mr Quelch, come here and help me convince Mrs Temple that the wickedness of Babylon was as nothing compared to the wickedness of this sweet and tranquil town.”

He laughed: they all laughed, and a moment or two later they were sitting together, discussing the matter. Quelch repudiated the libel on Kimberley. If “wickedness” was in question, he thought that Johannesburg ought, at any rate, to receive an honourable mention.

“There are no diamonds in Johannesburg,” said Mrs Cork.

“Diamonds!” Quelch looked musingly at Loree. “‘The most exquisite of gems, known only to kings.’ Pliny wrote that of them in the year 100 Anno Domini!”

His voice held a melancholy cadence; the dark beauty of his face suggested the East where women are addressed with a musical, caressing softness. Loree was susceptible to voices and she listened fascinated. It appeared that the Tintara, a mine outside Kimberley which had produced some remarkable diamonds, belonged to him, but he spoke of it carelessly, as if it were a broken-kneed horse he owned. He showed them a stone that had been discovered that day. It was rather like a piece of washing soda, with no glitter or spangle at all. Difficult to believe that it could be cut and polished into dazzling beauty. It must go to Europe for that though. There are no lapidaries in Africa.

Loree heard for the first time of the theory that diamonds come from the skies, and of the possibility that the mines in various parts of the world are meteorites so immense that in falling they penetrated the earth’s crust and became part of