She spent unwearied hours in Ann's studio, masquerading in a sculptor's smock and staring at clay and marble with eyes of unbelief.

And she tarried for amazed intervals in the studio upstairs where Margot Gilberte plied Cellini's art, embedding pennyweights of metal in hot pitch that, cooling, held it like a dark and shapeless hand while Margot sculptured elfin leaves and scrolls upon it.

Curious things came to the jeweler's desk where Margot worked; jewels cut and uncut, soft-colored sea-pebbles, natural lumps of greenish copper, silver and gold and brass (to Margot's eye there were no baser metals) malachite and coral and New Zealand jade.

Joan handled them all with gasps of reverence.
"And this, Margot?
How green it is!" "A peridot for a dewdrop in a leaf of gold.

And there, Question-mark, are the pink tourmalines I propose to use for rosebuds in this necklace of silver leaves." "And blue sapphires!" "They are for pools of sea-water in some golden seaweed and the pearls are for buds in some cherry leaves." "What an odd frail little tool, Margot!" "I made it myself," said Margot.