A few minutes later she arose to say good-night.
“It's good-bye,” Grief said, as he took her hand. “We sail at daylight.”
“So suddenly!” she cried, while Grief could not help seeing the quick light of satisfaction in her husband's eyes.
“Yes,” Grief continued. “All the repairs are finished. I can't get the longitude of your island out of your husband, though I'm still in hopes he'll relent.”
Hall laughed and shook his head, and, as his wife left the room, proposed a last farewell nightcap. They sat over it, smoking and talking.
“What do you estimate they're worth?” Grief asked, indicating the spread of pearls on the table. “I mean what the pearl-buyers would give you in open market?”
“Oh, seventy-five or eighty thousand,” Hall said carelessly.
“I'm afraid you're underestimating. I know pearls a bit. Take that biggest one. It's perfect. Not a cent less than five thousand dollars. Some multimillionaire will pay double that some day, when the dealers have taken their whack. And never minding the seed pearls, you've got quarts of baroques there. And baroques are coming into fashion. They're picking up and doubling on themselves every year.”
Hall gave the trove of pearls a closer and longer scrutiny, estimating the different parcels and adding the sum aloud.
“You're right,” he admitted. “They're worth a hundred thousand right now.”