"Mr. Rawn, there is really only one good selection in Oriental porcelains in town to-day. The large shops have their art rooms, of course, but they're horrible, for the most part, although most of our 'best people' buy there—because they're fashionable. There's a little man on —— street. I just happened to see the things in his window as I went by one day. He has some beautiful pieces."
"And beautiful prices?"
"Much higher than you would need to pay at any of the larger places, because these are genuine. None of them ever had such pieces as these—they wouldn't know them when they saw them. You must remember, Mr. Rawn, that if a piece of porcelain were only worth two dollars a thousand years ago, and it was one, say, of a thousand others just like it at that time, the loss by breakage of the other duplicates, and the lowest kind of compound interest from then till now, would warrant almost any sort of price you'd care to put on a real work of art—one that has come down from so long a time ago."
"You've got a good business head! You know the value of interest, and few women do. Now, all I want to know is, that I'm not being done. I don't so much care about the price. But has this man anything in the real goods, and if so, what would you suggest?"
VII
Miss Delaware's answer might have proved a trifle disconcerting, even to one more critically versed than her employer. "In my own taste, Mr. Rawn," she said judicially, "there is nothing in the world so beautiful as some of the old Chinese monochromes. They come sometimes in the most beautiful pale colors. There is the claire de lune, for instance—this little man has some perfectly wonderful specimens, three or four, I think; one good-sized jar. These pale blues grow on you. They don't seem so absolutely stunning at first, but they'll go anywhere; and they are beyond reproach in decoration. The pieces I saw are of the Sung dynasty; so they can't have been made later than 1300. They came from U-Chon, in the Honan province. I thought them very fine, and from my acquaintance with porcelains, I believe them to be genuine pieces."
"I know," said Rawn—he was perspiring rather freely—"But I confess I never was very much in love with Chinese art."
"But we owe so much to it, Mr. Rawn," she said with gentle enthusiasm. "We learned all we know of underglaze and overglaze from the Chinese—the best of our old English china was not made in England, but imported from the Orient, as you know. Chippendale got many of his own ideas in furniture decorations from the Chinese, and so did the French—why, you'll see Parisian bronzes, ever so old, and you couldn't tell whether they were made in France or China. And old! The man at this little shop has one piece which he says certainly was made before the Christian era. If I were in your place, however, I would adhere, say, to the Ming dynasty. Then you'll get as low as 1644."
"You mean apiece?"
"Oh, no, sir," she said gently, not smiling at his mistake. "I mean, the Ming dynasty ended in the year 1644."