broke into a pretty smile of good-humoured amusement. "Taken in
another person, Dick, dear!" she exclaimed, in her breezy way,
turning to her husband. "Lady Vandrift is observing your diamond
sleeve-links."

"They're very fine gems," Amelia observed incautiously. (A most
unwise admission if she desired to buy them.)

But the pleasant little curate was too transparently simple a soul
to take advantage of her slip of judgment. "They _are_ good stones,"
he replied; "very good stones--considering. They're not diamonds
at all, to tell you the truth. They're best old-fashioned Oriental
paste. My great-grandfather bought them, after the siege of
Seringapatam, for a few rupees, from a Sepoy who had looted them
from Tippoo Sultan's palace. He thought, like you, he had got a good
thing. But it turned out, when they came to be examined by experts,
they were only paste--very wonderful paste; it is supposed they had
even imposed upon Tippoo himself, so fine is the imitation. But they
are worth--well, say, fifty shillings at the utmost."

While he spoke Charles looked at Amelia, and Amelia looked at
Charles. Their eyes spoke volumes. The riviere was also supposed to
have come from Tippoo's collection. Both drew at once an identical
conclusion. These were two of the same stones, very likely torn
apart and disengaged from the rest in the melee at the capture of
the Indian palace.

"Can you take them off?" Sir Charles asked blandly. He spoke in
the tone that indicates business.