Part 9 (1/2)

”No. No like. You got something else--something nice?”

”No.” It was like a door closed in the face of their hope--that falling inflection, that blank of vacuity that settled over his face, and his whole drooping figure. He seemed to be only mutely awaiting their immediate departure to climb back again on his high stool. But Harry still leaned on the counter and grinned ingratiatingly. ”Oh, Joe, you good flen'. You got something pretty--maybe?”

The curtain of vacuity parted just a crack--let through a gleam of intense intelligence. ”Maybe.” The goldsmith chuckled deeply, as if Harry had unwittingly perpetrated some joke--some particularly clever conjurer's trick. He sidled out behind the counter, past the grinning brazier, and shuffled into the back of the shop where he opened a door.

Flora had expected a cupboard, but the vista it gave upon was a long, black, incredibly narrow pa.s.sage, that stretched away into gloom with all the suggestion of distance of a road going over a horizon. Down this the goldsmith went, with his straw slippers clapping on his heels, until his small figure merged in the gloom and presently disappeared altogether, and only the faint flipper-flap of his slippers came back growing more and more distant to them, and finally dying into silence.

In the stillness that followed while they waited they could hear each other breathe. The little shop with the water-stained walls and the ancient odor--ancient as the empire of China--inclosed them like a spell cast around them by a vanis.h.i.+ng enchanter to hold them there mute until his returning. They did not look at each other, but rather at the glowing brazier, at the gold on the gla.s.s plates, at the forms of people pa.s.sing in the street, moving palely across the dim window pane, as distant to Flora's eye as though they moved in another world. Then came the flipper-flap of the goldsmith's slippers returning. The sound snapped their tension, and Harry laughed.

”Lord knows how far he went to get it!”

”Across the street?” Flora wondered.

”Or under it. And it won't be worth two bits when it gets here.” He peered at the little man coming toward them down the pa.s.sage, flapping and shuffling, and carrying, held before him in both hands, a square, deep little box.

It was a worn, nondescript box that he set down before them, but the jealous way he had carried it had suggested treasure, and Flora leaned eagerly forward as he raised the cover, half expecting the blaze of a jewel-case. She saw at first only dull shanks of metal tumbled one upon the other. But, after a moment's peering, between them she caught gleams of veritable light. Her fingers went in to retrieve a hoop of heavy silver, in the midst of which was sunk a flawed topaz. She admired a moment the play of light over the imperfection.

”But this isn't Chinese,” she objected, turning her surprise on Harry.

”Lots of 'em aren't. These men glean everywhere. That's pretty.” He held up a little circle of discolored but l.u.s.terful pearls--let it fall again, since it was worth only a glance. He leaned on the counter, indifferent to urge where value seemed so slight. He seemed amused at Flora's enthusiasm for clouded opals.

”They look well enough among this junk,” he said, ”but compare them with your own rings and you'll see the difference.”

She heard him dreamily. She was wis.h.i.+ng, as she turned over the tumble of damaged jewels, that things so pretty might have been perfect. To find a perfect thing in this place would be too extraordinary to hope for. Yet, taking up the next, and the next, she found herself wis.h.i.+ng it might be this one--this cracked intaglio. No? Then this blue one--say.

The setting spoke nothing for it. It was a plain, thin, round hoop of palpable bra.s.s, and the battered thing seemed almost too feeble to hold the solitary stone. But the stone! She looked it full in the eye, the big, blazing, blue eye of it. What was the matter with this one? A flaw?

She held it to the light.

She felt Harry move behind her. She knew he couldn't but be looking at it. For how, by all that was marvelous, had she for a moment doubted it?

Down to its very heart, which was near to black, it was clear fire, and outward toward the facets struck flaming hyacinth hues with zigzag white cross-lights that dazzled and mesmerized. Just the look of it--the marvelous deep well of its light--declared its truth.

”Harry,” she breathed, without taking her gaze from the thing in her hand, ”do look at this!”

She felt him lean closer. Then with an abrupt ”Let's see it,” he took it from her--held it to the light, laid it on his palm, looking sharply across the counter at the shopkeeper, then back at the ring with a long scrutiny. His face, too, had a flush of excitement.

”Is it--good?” Flora faltered.

”A sapphire,” he said, and taking her third finger by the tip, he slid on the thin circle of metal.

She breathed high, looking down at the stone with eyes absorbed in the blue fire. There was none of the cupidity of women for jewels in her look. It was the intrinsic beauty of this drop of dark liquid light that had captured her. It had mystery, and her imagination woke to it--the wistful mystery of perfect beauty. And perfect beauty in such a place!

It was too beautiful. The feeling it brought her was too sharp for pure pleasure. It was dimly like fear. Yet instinctively she shut her hand about the ring. She murmured out her wonder.

”How in the world did such a thing come here?”

”Oh, not so strange,” Harry answered. He leaned on his elbow upon the counter, his head bent close to hers above the single, glittering point that drew the four eyes to one focus. ”Sailors now and then pick up a thing of whose value they have no idea--get hard up, and p.a.w.n it--still without any idea. These chaps”--and his bold hand indicated the shopkeeper--”take in anything--that is, anything worth their while; and wait, and wait, and wait until they see just the moment--and turn it to account.”

It might be because Harry's eyes were so taken with the jewel that his tongue ran recklessly. He had spoken low, but Flora sent an anxious glance to be sure the shopkeeper hadn't overheard. She had meant only to glance, but she found herself staring into eyes that stared back from the other side of the counter. That wide, unwinking scrutiny filled her whole vision. For an instant she saw nothing but the dance of scintillant pupils. Then, with a little gasp she clutched at her companion's arm.

”Oh, Harry!”

His glance came quickly round to her. ”Why, what's the matter?”