“I never saw a better private collection, Madame Gobelli,” said Anthony Pennell, as he gloated over the delicate morsels of Sèvres and Limoges and Strasbourg. “The Baron should have had an old curiosity and bric-a-brac establishment, instead of anything so prosaic as boots and shoes.”
“O! I couldn’t ’ave ’ad it!” exclaimed the Baroness, “it would ’ave gone to my ’eart to sell a good bargain when I ’ad made it! My cups and saucers and plates and teapots are like children to me, and if I thought my Bobby would sell ’em when I was gone, I believe I should rise from my grave and whack ’im.”
The woman became almost womanly as her eyes rested lovingly on her art treasures. It seemed incongruous to Pennell, to watch her huge coarse hands, with their thick stumpy fingers and broad chestnut nails, fingering the delicate fabric with apparent carelessness. Cup after cup and vase and plate she almost tossed over each other, as she pushed some away to make room for others, and piled them up on the top of one another, until he trembled lest they should all come toppling down together.
“You are more used to handle these treasures than I am,” he remarked presently, “I should be too much afraid of smashing something, to move them so quickly as you do.”
“I never broke a bit of china in my life,” returned the Baroness energetically. “I’ve broken a stick over a man’s back, more than once, but never ’ad an accident with my plates and dishes. ’Ow do you account for that?”
“You must have a flow of good luck!” said Mr. Pennell, “I am so fearful for mine that I keep all the best under glass!”
“I ’ave more friends to ’elp me than perhaps you know of,” said the Baroness, mysteriously, “but it ain’t only that! I never let a servant dust it! Miss Wynward does it, but she’s too much afraid to do more than touch ’em with the tip of her feather brush. They come to me sometimes and complain that the china is dirty. ‘Let it be dirty,’ I say, ‘that won’t break it, but if you clean it, you will!’ Ha! ha! ha!”
At that moment Harriet Brandt entered the room, moving sinuously across the carpet as a snake might glide to its lair. Anthony Pennell could not take his eyes off that gliding walk of hers. It seemed to him the very essence of grace. It distracted all his attention from the china.
“The Baron has just come in,” observed Harriet to her hostess.
“Oh! well! come along and leave the rest of the china till after dinner,” said Madame Gobelli. “Gustave likes to ’ave ’is dinner as soon as ’e comes ’ome.”