“I am to show it to them and let them know, in that way, that I am supposed to be engaged to you?” He answered this with another question. “Tell me, Miss Trant, have you been having any unpleasantness in the office about this—coming out to lunch with me?” “N-no,” I said. “Of course,” I added more quickly, “it’s been awkward! You could not expect it not to have been awkward—at least, for me!” “Ah? Made awkward for you by those girls—what?” “No! Oh, no!” I fibbed swiftly. For again I could conclude his comment with that relentless “Well, then, they can go!” And I couldn’t have the girls sacked, calmly as I felt I could have seen them all three strangled an hour before. “Only—a little difficult to explain.” “This will explain it,” said my employer coolly, as the taxi stopped outside the glass door of the great jeweller’s. A page-boy in green-and-silver swung it open for us. And Mr. Waters made me precede him into the softly-carpeted shop with the long glass counters and the white velvet stands curved to the shape of a woman’s neck, on which winked and flashed, gleamed and glowed, diamonds—rubies—pearls—jewels of every description. [79] [79] “The sight of flowers soothes and softens a woman’s mood. Jewels, on the other hand, stimulate, excite and irritate her. Possibly because they generally signify longings unattainable combined with the knowledge that, given that necklace, or gems like those, or such a pair of ear-rings, and any beauty she has would be tenfold increased.” ... That is how Sydney Vandeleur explained it to me. He’s interested in jewels ever since he won that Arts and Crafts competition for the design of a girdle in silver, mother-o’-pearl, and peridot. And Cicely, of the red curls, once confessed that she would marry an octogenarian if he could give her a really lovely rope of black pearls! But that was in fun. This was business.... A small, olive-faced shopman in a frock-coat and with curls like a retriever’s back bowed over the counter and flashed his teeth at us. Mentally I nicknamed him Mr. Levi Smarm. It would have taken all Miss Robinson’s powers of mimicry to reproduce the suavity of his “Sir? What may I have the pleasure?” “We want to see some
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