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the party knew him at Oxford. He entertained them all, I understand, in the most extravagant manner for a month or so. He, I have gathered from fair reports, at least interested Miss Regan. She shot with him, beat him at tennis, took him up and showed him how to volplane down in his machine. He seems to have dared her, I might say, to marry him. She agreed to do it if he would give up all his wives, including Alarna, and take from Alarna and—if he still wished her, Miss Regan, rather than all the rest after six months—send to her to keep absolutely the great Surakarta as his pledge. It is, as any lapidarist can tell you, the most remarkable and by far the largest and most valuable emerald in the world. It is, indeed, invaluable—clear, without flaw and, cut in perfect star contour, larger than a man's fist.