I thought it must have been very becoming to her. But I was too afraid of wasting time to tell her so.
“I hoped they would empty the pool and let us into a secret passage at the bottom of it, or something like that. But they took us through a high tiled porch at one end of the court, into a sort of apartment where the Shah stays when he makes pilgrimages to the shrine—all plaster arabesques, stuck over in the quaintest way with bits of mirror glass.”
“Was it there?” I asked desperately, perceiving signs of coffee.
“Not in the room where we sat down. There was nothing but rugs and couches. They served us tea and candies and ices, and they talked about the weather, and asked how many children Peter and I had. They were frightfully embarrassing. And at last, one at a time, they began showing us things that the Shah had sent there and wanted to sell.”
“Fancy!” I heard from my right.
“Some of them were quite nice,” said Mrs. Maturin. “There were one or two big carpets, and a few of those funny old books full of gaudy little pictures that look like nothing on earth, touched up with gold. Pottery, too. The usual bazaar kind of thing, only better of its kind than usual. Then they showed us jewels—bowls of them! They were nothing very extraordinary, though: mostly rubies and pearls. I didn’t have my veil down, either,” she added. “They let me put it off, in there. But I wouldn’t let them put me off, even when they brought out two or three good enough emeralds. The Adorner of the Monarchy—isn’t he killing!—had got us permission to see the Peacock Throne, and I insisted that they must let us see it. So at last, very unwillingly, they took us into an inner room. It was full of boxes and bundles, piled helter-skelter on top of one another. They cleared off some of them till they came to an enormous case, which they opened with the most ridiculous little adzes you ever saw. And out of it they pulled a mountain of paper and old silks. But under them all was the throne.”
“Her voice had gradually been lifting, and by this time the rest of the table was silent. What came to me that time was that a story is never quite the same for the different people who listen to it, and that no one there could possibly be listening quite so intensely as I—unless it were Peter. But if he was going down with all on board, he had evidently made up his mind to it. I caught that out of the corner of my eye.”
“Did you sit on it?” asked the General, jovially.
“Of course I did!” answered Mrs. Maturin. “And it was as uncomfortable as thrones are said to be. It wasn’t a chair at all, but a kind of longish platform, set on seven curved legs, with two or three steps at one end. There was a balustrade around the platform, with enameled inscriptions in cartouches outside of it, and a high back. It ended in a jewelled peacock with an outspread tail of turquoises, sapphires, and emeralds. But the most prodigious emerald of all was set in his breast.”
“No diamonds?” demanded Pittsburgh.