His lids fell, he took up the paper he
had dropped, and I sculled the length of the old red wall of
Hampton Court before he spoke again.
"And they gave you nothing for these! My dear Bunny, they're
capital, not only qua verses but for crystallizing your subject
and putting it in a nutshell. Certainly you've taught ME more
about it than I knew before. But is it really worth fifty
thousand pounds--a single pearl?"
"A hundred, I believe; but that wouldn't scan."
"A hundred thousand pounds!" said Raffles, with his eyes shut.
And again I made certain what was coming, but again I was
mistaken. "If it's worth all that," he cried at last, "there
would be no getting rid of it at all; it's not like a diamond
that you can subdivide. But I beg your pardon, Bunny. I was
forgetting!"
And we said no more about the emperor's gift; for pride thrives
on an empty pocket, and no privation would have drawn from me the
proposal which I had expected Raffles to make. My expectation
had been half a hope, though I only knew it now. But neither did
we touch again on what Raffles professed to have forgotten--my
"apostasy," my "lapse into virtue," as he had been pleased to
call it. We were both a little silent, a little constrained,
each preoccupied with his own thoughts. It was months since we
had met, and, as I saw him off towards eleven o'clock that Sunday
night, I fancied it was for more months that we were saying
good-by.
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