She made, consequently, what preparation she could against surprise.

Thoroughly capable of managing her features, her anxiety was sufficient nevertheless to deprive her of power over her complexion, and she entered the room with the pallor peculiar to the dark-skinned.

Having greeted the Count with the greatest composure, she turned to Mr.Redmain with question in her eyes.
"Count Galofta," said Mr.Redmain in reply, "has just been telling me a curious story of how a certain rascal got possession of a valuable jewel from a lady with whom he pretended to be in love, and I thought the opportunity a good one for showing you a strange discovery I have made with regard to the sapphire Mrs.Redmain missed for so long.

Very odd tricks are played with gems--such gems, that is, as are of value enough to make it worth a rogue's while." So saying, he took the ring from one drawer, and from another a bottle, from which he poured something into a crystal cup.

Then he took a file, and, looking at Galofta, in whose well-drilled features he believed he read something that was not mere curiosity, said, "I am going to show you something very curious," and began to file asunder that part of the ring which immediately clasped the sapphire, the setting of which was open.
"What a pity!" cried Sepia; "you are destroying the ring! What will Cousin Hesper say ?" Mr.Redmain filed away, heedless; then with the help of a pair of pincers freed the stone, and held it up in his hand.
"You see this ?" he said.
"A splendid sapphire!" answered Count Galofta, taking it in his fingers, but, as Mr.Redmain saw, not looking at it closely.
"I have always heard it called a splendid stone," said Sepia, whose complexion, though not her features, passed through several changes while all this was going on: she was anxious.
Nor did her inquisitor fail to surprise the uneasy glances she threw, furtively though involuntarily, in the face of the Count--who never once looked in hers: tolerably sure of himself, he was not sure of her.
"That ring, when I bought it--the stone of it," said Mr.Redmain, "was a star sapphire, and worth seven hundred pounds; now, the whole affair is worth about ten." As he spoke, he threw the stone into the cup, let it lie a few moments, and took it out again; when, almost with a touch, he divided it in two, the one a mere scale.
"There!" he said, holding out the thin part on the tip of a finger, "that is a slice of sapphire; and there!" holding out the rest of the seeming stone, "that is glass." "What a shame!" cried Sepia.
"Of course," said the Count, "you will prosecute the jeweler." "I will not prosecute the jeweler," answered Mr.Redmain; "but I have taken some trouble to find out who changed the stones." With that he threw both the bits of blue into a drawer, and the contents of the cup into the fire.