"I don't believe it."
"But it is true, Georgie."
"Who told you?"
"Mrs. Flippin."
"It is all—rot——"
"It isn't rot, Georgie. Mrs. Flippin knows about it. Becky inherits from her Meredith grandmother. And her grandfather is Admiral Meredith of Nantucket, with a big house on Beacon Street in Boston. And they all belong to the inner circle."
He stared at her. "But Becky doesn't look it. She doesn't wear rings and things."
"'Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes'? Oh, George, did you think it had to be like that
when people had money? Why, her pearls belonged to a queen." She told him their history.
It came back to him with a shock that he had said to Becky that the pearls cheapened her. "If they were real," he had said.