"No," she answered him, in a choked voice, "I have changed my mind. I
won't take these."
She was handling an unsurpassable necklace of big pearls.
He whispered to her.
"No," she said, curtly. "I won't look at any others. I think I'll go
home."
He was so amazed that he never saw me or, I think, anything or anybody
else in that shop just then. He escorted her out.
When I regained my self-possession enough to feel that I appeared at ease
and could trust myself to glance at the other customers as I should have
done had I been in fact what I was trying to appear, I was relieved to
find that not one of them was more than distantly known to me.
The idlers on the benches showed no inclination to rise and approach the
counter. Falco and I occupied the interval vacated by Clemens and Vedia.
Agathemer, of all men on earth, asked what he could do for us. Falco stood
there a long time, saw a goodly fraction of the finest jewels in
Orontides' possession and, manifestly, made as favorable impression of
connoisseurship on Agathemer as Agathemer made on him. They eyed each
other as fellow-adepts. Falco asked that he reserve an antique Babylonian
seal cut in sardonyx and promised to send a messenger with its price
before dark.
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