“You think,” said Mrs. Whittaker to Julia, “you think that Maudie would like these better than the larger ones?”
“Oh yes, mother, there’s no comparison. The big ones don’t look better than paste; these are unmistakably the real thing.”
“It is a pleasure to sell diamonds to so good a judge,” said the gentleman who was attending to them.
“I should have thought,” said Alfred Whittaker, in his most prosaic manner, “that as long as you sold your goods it would not matter to whom you sold them.”
“Excuse me, sir, that is where you make a mistake. We have a lady customer—she is a duchess—who frequently brings her jewels to be cleaned. She says her maid is a child at jewel-cleaning. It is not our business to say to the contrary, but that lady kills every diamond in her possession.”
“How kills?” said Julia.
“I cannot say, madam. Something in her magnetism causes the stones to look dead and slatey. The stones that she has had in her possession and worn continually for the last twenty years are not now worth a twentieth part of what was originally paid for them—all the fire has gone out of them. Whether they would recover themselves by being worn by a magnetic wearer I do not know. We have a young lady here in our establishment of quite radiant magnetism. She does no work, but gets a good salary and simply remains here and occupies herself as she likes and wears certain jewels a certain number of times. Sometimes when that particular lady—the duchess—is anxious to make a great appearance on some special occasion, we have her best stones for a month or even longer. This young lady of ours wears them all day long, and I can assure you it is an odd sight to see her with her two hands covered with rings, even her thumbs, her arms loaded with bracelets, one diamond necklace worn in the ordinary way, and another one worn over her shoulders.”
“And the diamonds recover their color?”
“Oh yes, madam, but these are only the stones that her Grace wears occasionally. I have been told,” he went on, “that their brilliance never lasts with her, and that long before the Drawing-room, or whatever the function may be, is over, they look as if they had been black-leaded. You can quite understand, sir,” he said, turning to Alfred Whittaker, “that it is positive pain to me to sell any of our best diamonds to such a wearer.”
“Well,” said Alfred, “the lady who is going to wear these earrings will never, I think, trouble you in the same way.”