Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story

Her jewel-box stood open, to receive the jewels she wore to-night. She went very calmly to it. There, in a corner of the topmost tray, rested the two great white pearls--the pearls which, in one way and another, had meant so much to her. “Melisande!” “Mademoiselle?” “When we go to Paris, would you like to make a little present to your fiance?” “Je voudrais bien, mademoiselle.” “Then you shall give him these,” said Zuleika, holding out the two studs. “Mais jamais de la vie! Chez Tourtel tout le monde le dirait millionaire. Un garcon de cafe qui porte au plastron des perles pareilles--merci!” “Tell him he may tell every one that they were given to me by the late Duke of Dorset, and given by me to you, and by you to him.” “Mais--” The protest died on Melisande’s lips. Suddenly she had ceased to see the pearls as trinkets finite and inapposite--saw them as things presently transmutable into little marble tables, bocks, dominos, absinthes au sucre, shiny black portfolios with weekly journals in them, yellow staves with daily journals flapping from them, vermouths secs, vermouths cassis... “Mademoiselle is too amiable,” she said, taking the pearls.