Pagina 304 de 490

On one occasion he took up the study of jewels, and appeared at a

costume ball as Anne de Joyeuse, Admiral of France, in a dress

covered with five hundred and sixty pearls. This taste enthralled

him for years, and, indeed, may be said never to have left him.

He would often spend a whole day settling and resettling in their

cases the various stones that he had collected, such as the

olive-green chrysoberyl that turns red by lamplight, the

cymophane with its wirelike line of silver, the

pistachio-coloured peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes,

carbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous, four-rayed stars,

flame-red cinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels, and

amethysts with their alternate layers of ruby and sapphire. He

loved the red gold of the sunstone, and the moonstone's pearly

whiteness, and the broken rainbow of the milky opal.