He was handsome, as these white unbelievers go, observed Muhafiz Ali. The eyes smiled with the assurance of one who knows a lot and is aware of his wisdom. Rather reckless eyes. His skin was tanned and the light hair and beard (beard because the word "Van Dyke" is not in Muhafiz Ali's vocabulary) made it more pronounced. White linens completed the picture.
Muhafiz Ali, his rage dissolving, salaamed.
"You're Muhafiz Ali, the lapidary?"
The Mussulman detected in his speech a flaw that suggested he was not an English Sahib; probably American, or from one of those numerous countries behind the sunset, of which he had heard little and knew less.
"Not only a jeweller, Sahib," he returned, for he spoke English fluently, "but a dealer in silks, rugs—"
But the man brushed past him and entered the inner room. Muhafiz Ali rose and clattered after him in his loose Mohammedan slippers.
"Do you have jade?" asked the sahib.
For answer Muhafiz Ali lifted the lid of a brass-bound chest and drew forth a tray of necklaces—lustrous, creamy-green jade from Mirzapore.
"Not that kind," said the sahib, with a gesture (and had Muhafiz Ali known the meaning of the word, "Gallic" he would have applied it to that quick wave of the hand); "the clear sort."
Whereupon the Mussulman separated a string of genuine fei tsui from several necklaces in another tray. The stones glowed deep parrot-green.