The Blue Diamond Read Online Free PDF Page A

a recurrence, you know,” she added, as she was not completely happy to have ceased being an invalid so early.
    “I trust there will be no recurrence of the malady till you find yourself enceinte again,” Moncrief replied, taking up a chair between the two.
    “Ah, how little you men know about the travails of childbearing,” she accused sadly.
    “She’s got us there, Tatt,” her husband pointed out.
    “Indisputably.”
    “I shall just take it easy and recuperate,” she assured them. “One can relax as well in Vienna as at home in England. Lud, there is nothing going on there at this time. Tell me, Tatt, Harvey and I were just discussing it, and would like your opinion. Which hostess is held in higher repute, the Princess Bagration, or the Duchesse de Sagan? We met Wilhelmine last night at the Hofburg, but it seems to me everyone there spoke of Bagration, and certainly she has attached the Tsar.”
    “Well, the Tsar spreads himself very thin,” Moncrief told her. “Anyone may have him, but on the other hand, Sagan has got Metternich eating out of her hand, and is also on terms with the Tsar.”
    "That was not my impression!”
    “Oh yes, he shares his time between them. One is more likely to encounter Prince Talleyrand and the Prince de Ligne chez Sagan, for Sagan’s sister Dorothée is niece to the French prince, and stays with him at this time, to act his hostess. But the Duchesse’s parties are very recherché —you will not easily gain the entrée there.”
    The married couple exchanged a speaking glance. That easily Moncrief had attained his goal.
    “Very likely,” Lady Palgrave said, in a voice of heavy irony. “Tell me, what are all the on dits here? You will have to fill us in. We are completely out if it.”
    “When you honor us with your presence, Ma’am, there is only un dit , if I may encumber you with a very poor pun. All the world and his dog speaks of some bauble your husband bought you. A red diamond, or a ruby was it?”
    “The Star of Burma!” she answered, waving her hands in glee. “Harvey, love, get it to show Tatt. It is on my dresser—or perhaps Abrams has put it away. Abrams will know where it is.”
    Moncrief stared, to hear this legendary gem was so carelessly lying about the house. “You should take better care of it than that!”
    “Locked in the vault,” Harvey told him. “Put it in last night myself after we—that is, after Goog fell asleep.”
    “Oh, that is why you were gone this morning! I wondered where you were,” his wife said, with a lascivious smile.
    “Could have come to my room, you know,” was his answer. Moncrief cleared his throat rather loudly, and looked to the window, where a monkey was swinging from the drapery. “Don’t see why I’m always the one has to go to you. You used to . . ."
    “About that vault, Harvey,” Moncrief interrupted impatiently, “I would bear in mind the vault in this house is as well known as a public monument. This was Würtemberg's headquarters a few weeks ago. That tin can behind the painting of Schonbrunn Palace in the study could be opened with a screwdriver. You would do better to keep it at the bank.”
    “In my own vault. Brought it with me,” Palgrave said. “Weighs six hundred pounds. Takes three stout men to carry it. I’ll fetch it. The ruby I mean. Anxious to hear what you think of it, Tatt.”
     He sauntered from the room, while his wife turned to Moncrief. “Do you notice anything different about me?” she asked, rising from her pillows and patting her wisps of curls, while her blue eyes regarded him from beneath lowered eyelids.
    “Certainly I do. A new coiffure. Very nice, Lady Palgrave,” he said, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.
    It was what one particularly hated about Moncrief, that he was neither adoring nor rude, which would have done nearly as well. Rudeness was due to either jealousy or unrequited love. Moncrief was always polite to a fault.
    “It has set quite a new style in