In nine shallow metal trays they filled the safe in Roger's room.

Although its money value was small, the Gale collection was well known to a scattered public of connoisseurs, and Roger took pride in showing it.

But what had always appealed to him most was the romance, the mystery, stored up in these old talismans that had lived so many ages, travelled through so many lands, decked so many fingers.

Roger had found every one of them in the pawnshops of New York.
What new recruits to America had brought them here and pawned them?
From what old cities had they come?
What passions of love and jealousy, of hatred, faith, devotion were in this glittering array?
Roger's own love affair had been deep, but quiet and even and happy.

All the wild adventures, the might-have-beens in his sex life, were gathered in these dusky trays with their richly colored glints of light.
Of his daughters, Laura had been the one most interested in his rings, and so he thought of Laura now as he placed in the tray the new ring he had bought, the one he would have liked for her.