"These are the things you sell?" Mary-Jean asked in disbelief.
"To women. Only to women such as yourself."
It was still a sales pitch, Mary-Jean told herself. An elaborate one, to be sure, but presently the peddler would come down to earth with the offer of some specific product, perhaps a beauty cream or perfume. Still, she had to admit that the strange haze over the open suitcase certainly was effective.
"What do you charge for selling—for selling a fling at the exotic, as you say?"
The peddler laughed. It was a birdlike sound, a chirping, twittering laugh. "Oh, no, my dear," he said, rocking with his laughter, "you don't understand. You've already paid."
"I already paid?"
"All your life, for every day of your life, you have paid. Every day you accepted the mundane and the humdrum, you have paid. You have paid a thousand times over."
"You mean I get this—this whatever it is you're selling—free of charge?"
"Very well. Call it that if you want. But shall we get down to business? I sell happiness. I sell happiness in the form of personal adornment."