Jewel Mysteries by Max Pemberton

A photograph of My Lady of the Sapphires is hung immediately opposite to the writing-table in my private office. It is there much on the principle which compels a monk to set a skull upon his praying-stool, or a son of Mohammed to ejaculate pious phrases at the call of the muezzin. "_Nemo solus sapit_," wrote Plautus. Had Fate cast him in the mould of a jeweler, rather than that of a playwright, he would have set down a stronger phrase.

I first saw My Lady two years ago, though it was only upon the day of my introduction that I learnt her name. She had then, though I knew it not, been before the town for many weeks as a physiognomist, a mistress of the stars, a reader of faces, and in many other capacities interesting to the idle and the credulous. Society, which laughed at her predictions, paid innumerable guineas for the possession of them; great dames sat in her boudoir and discussed amatory possibilities; even the youth of the city, drawn by the prettiness of her manner and her unquestionable good looks, came cheerfully to hear that they would have money "from two sources," or had passed through the uninteresting complaints of infancy without harm. In her way, she was the event of the season. Dowagers scolded her, but came again and again to probe family secrets, and learn the hidden things about their husbands; men flocked to her to know what possibility there was of an early return to the bliss of single life; mere boys ventured upon the hazard of a little mild flirtation -- and were at once shown the door by a formidable lackey. Throughout her career scandal never lifted its voice against her. She was engaged ultimately to Jack Lucas, and her marriage was as brilliant as her career had been fortunate.