"It is the man who sold us the sapphire," she whispered; and "Oh, what does he want of you?"
"Eh?" said Chatworth, interrogating the goldsmith with his monocle. "What do you want?"
The little man finished his long, and, what had seemed his blind, stare; then dived into his sleeve. He drew forth a crumpled thing which seemed to be a pellet and this he proceeded to unfold. Flora crept cautiously forward, loath to come near, but curious, and saw him spread out and hold up a roughly torn triangle of newspaper. She gave a cry at sight of it. Across the top in thick black type ran the figures $20,000.
Chatworth pointed a stern forefinger. "What is it?" he said, though by his tone he knew.
The Chinaman also pointed at it, but cautious and apologetic. "Twenty thousand dollar. You likee twenty thousand dollar?" He waited a moment. Then, with a glimmer as of returning sight, presented the alternative. "You likee god?—little joss?—come so?" And with his finger he traced in the air a curve of such delicate accuracy that the Englishman with an exclamation made a step toward him. But the Chinaman did not move. "Twenty thousand dollar," he stated. It sounded an impersonal statement, but nevertheless it was quite evident this time to whom it applied.
The Englishman measured off his words slowly as if to an incomplete understanding, which Flora was aware was all too miraculously quick. "This little god, this ring—do you know where it is? Can you take me to it?"
The goldsmith nodded emphatically at each word, but when all was said he only reiterated, "Twenty thousand dollar."
Chatworth gave Flora an almost shamefaced glance, and she saw with a curious twinge of jealousy that he was intensely excited. "Might as well have a pot-shot at it," he said; and sitting down on the edge of the fountain and taking out his check-book, rested it on his knee and wrote. Then he rose; he held up the filled-in slip before the Chinaman's eyes.
"Here," he said, "twenty thousand dollars." He held the paper well out of the little man's reach. "Now," he challenged, "tell me where it is?"
Into the goldsmith's eyes came a lightning flash of intelligence, such as Flora remembered to have seen there when Farrell Wand, leaning on the dusty counter, had bidden him go and bring something pretty. He seemed to quiver a moment in indecision. Then he whipped his hand out of his sleeve and held it forth palm upward. This time it was Chatworth who cried out. The thing that lay on the goldsmith's palm Flora had never seen, though once it had been described to her—"a bit of an old gold heathen god, curled around himself, with his head of two yellow sapphires and a big blue stone on top."