“I can’t tell that until I’ve taken them apart and weighed the gold. Come back next week, and I’ll tell you.”
“Next week!” cried Victoria. “Oh, can’t you do it now? I do want to take the money home to-day.”
“And ain’t you going to buy Christmas presents with it?” asked the old man.
“No indeed, I’m not. We really need the money. Couldn’t you tell me if I were to come back this afternoon? At three o’clock, for instance?”
“Very well. Come in at three, and I’ll try to have them weighed before that. These earrings are hollow, I guess, and there ain’t so very much gold in this open-faced watch. Here’s a receipt.”
He scrawled something on a bit of paper which he gave to Victoria, and she thanked him and left the shop. She then took her way to a picture store. It was a large one that was much frequented, and it required some determination on her part to go in and display her wares. The clerks were such fashionably dressed young men that she felt somewhat in awe of them, and they all appeared to be so busy that it was long before she was noticed at all.
At last, however, one of them stepped up to her and asked her what she wished. For a moment Victoria could not find her voice, and when she finally spoke it was so low and trembling that the clerk could not understand her.
“You wish to look at etchings?” said he. “Right over here, please. Summers, show this young lady some etchings. I have another customer.” And he turned to a gentleman who was looking at some pictures with the air of intending to buy one if not more.
“Oh, no,” said Victoria. “You have made a mistake. I don’t want to look at etchings. I want to sell those I have here. I thought that—that perhaps—you would buy them.”
Her voice was now perfectly audible. In her effort to make herself understood it reached farther than she intended. The two clerks and the gentleman who stood there all turned and looked at Victoria, and she with her package under her arm felt as though she should like to sink through the floor and disappear forever from their sight.