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The Pearls And The Swine
by
Miss Markham clasped her hands. “How strange,” she said. “I was reading that just as you came in. How strange that you should have known it!”
“My dear lady, you must not imagine that I am a romantic man, for I am not, nor am I a good man. I am not highly connected, and I have not got a better self; the only self I have got is the one before you. But I do claim to be able to appreciate. I have appreciated this evening immensely. Walter Pater is not the last word just now, but I have always appreciated beautiful prose. Far more than beautiful prose I appreciate the pure poetry of your own temperament.” He raised his glass. “To your good health, Miss Markham, and good night.”
As he neared the door, she called him back. “You have forgotten the pearls,” she said.
“No, but I wanted you to remind me.”
She unclasped them, and handed them to him. He held them in his hand for a moment. “They are warm,” he said, “from your soft, round neck.” He raised them to his lips for a moment and then dropped them into a prosaic inside pocket of his coat.
“Yes,” he said, “from time immemorial women have been fond of casting their pearls before swine, haven’t they? But you have kept the real pearls.” He bowed low to her, and in a moment was gone.
In a letter which Miss Markham wrote to Miss Ryles appeared the following passage:
“It was such a pity, dear, that you could not come down to the bungalow the other week-end, it was so quiet and peaceful; incidentally, by mere chance, I met quite the most charming man I have ever seen in my life. No more news, except that I got tired of my old pearl necklace and am getting another.
“Oh, and I was quite forgetting; you said that if ever I wanted to part with my emerald ring, I was to give you the first refusal of it. My dear, you can have it. I have decided that pearls are the only things I can wear.”
Naturally Miss Markham had to give notice to the police of the fact that she had lost her pearl necklace.
She had heard something moving in her bedroom, and on entering it a man had jumped out through the window. All she could say for certain was that he was clean-shaven, and had close-cropped black hair.