He looked at her grimly, his determination not to be played with in this fashion growing.
'Not quite!' he answered. 'There was yet one thing lacking; one thing that I had meant to have secured--only I could not--you were so late in coming.'
'I?' she asked curiously. 'Was it something to do with me, then?'
'With the perfection of your dress--it needs something!'
She coloured up pink as her roses, and gave a hurried glance at a mirror opposite. 'I do not see it,' she said angrily.
'Yes, you do!' he persisted, looking in the mirror also. 'There is something wanted here.' He pointed to her white throat, and in the mirror his hand pointed to it also.
'Ah'h,' she sighed thoughtfully.--'Yes! pearls--but I had no real ones. And--and I can stand paste--but somehow sham pearls----!'
'No! not pearls! No! never! Not milk-and-water pearls!' he protested. 'Not with roses there'--he pointed to the glistening shoulders--'and roses there'--the hand in the mirror seemed almost to touch the glistening hair.--'It should be roses here. And--and I had some pink topazes--a bagatelle--you might have bought them from me if you would not take them as a gift. Bah! a trifle!--just drops of pink dew hanging from a fine gold chain----'
Her hard blue eyes grew covetous; she drew in her breath. 'Drops of pink dew hanging from a fine gold chain!--How--how perfectly delicious! And cheap too--oh! do let me see them.'
'Why not, madame? Are they not in my office room; but'--he looked at her and laughed--'will you not smoke one cigarette while you inspect them?'