“Is Marten a sultan, then?”
The private secretary chortled over the joke. “I’m jiggered if I could have pulled off a wheeze like that if I had been chucked off a cliff and my leg was out of gear!” he cried. “No, my boy, Marten has a clean record in that respect. I’ve never known him look twice at any woman; though he’s had chances in plenty. What I mean is that these sweet young things who have never seen a real store, and don’t know sable from dyed rabbit, wake up amazingly when they’re Mrs. Somebody of Somewhere. Look at Mrs. Van Pieter! A year ago she was keeping tab on people who hired her father’s canoes at Portland, Maine, and it’s hardly a week since I met her in Tiffany’s, matching pearls at a thousand dollars a pick.”
“What were you doing in Tiffany’s?”
The question seemed to take Benson by surprise; but, though he might be talkative as a parrot, he did not discuss his employer’s personal behests.
“Having a look around,” he said.
“I thought you might be buying Mrs. Marten’s wedding gift,” went on Power.
“Well, as a guesser, you’d come out first in a prize competition.”
“It was—just—curiosity. I wondered—what—Marten gave her.”
“That’s no secret. She wore it today. A collarette of diamonds.”
“Ah, a collar! Has it a golden padlock? Is there a leash?”