'They'll never be able to get a culture pearl that an expert like me can't tell with half an eye.' He pointed to a chain that Mrs Ramsay wore. 'You take my word for it, Mrs Ramsay, that chain you're wearing will never be worth a cent less than it is now.'
Mrs Ramsay in her modest way flushed a little and slipped the chain inside her dress. Ramsay leaned forward. He gave us all a look and a smile flickered in his eyes.
'That's a pretty chain of Mrs Ramsay's, isn't it?'
'I noticed it at once,' answered Mr Kelada. 'Gee, I said to myself, those are pearls all right.'
'I didn't buy it myself, of course. I'd be interested to know how much you think it cost.'
'Oh, in the trade somewhere round fifteen thousand dollars. But if it was bought on Fifth Avenue I shouldn't be surprised to hear that anything up to thirty thousand was paid for it.'
Ramsay smiled grimly.
'You'll be surprised to hear that Mrs Ramsay bought that string at a department store the day before we left New York, for eighteen dollars.' Mr Kelada flushed.
'Rot. It's not only real, but it's as fine a string for its size as I've ever seen.'
'Will you bet on it? I'll bet you a hundred dollars it's imitation.'
'Done.'
'Oh, Elmer, you can't bet on a certainty,' said Mrs Ramsay.
She had a little smile on her lips and her tone was gently deprecating.
'Can't I? If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a fool not to take it.'
'But how can it be proved?' she continued. 'It's only my word against Mr Kelada's.'
'Let me look at the chain, and if it's imitation I'll tell you quickly enough. I can afford to lose a hundred dollars,' said Mr Kelada.
'Take it off, dear. Let the gentleman look at it as much as he wants.'
Mrs Ramsay hesitated a moment. She put her hands to the clasp.
'I can't undo it,' she said. 'Mr Kelada will just have to take my word for it.'
I had a sudden suspicion that something unfortunate was about to occur, but I could think of nothing to say.
Ramsay jumped up.
'I'll undo it.'
He handed the chain to Mr Kelada. The Levantine took a magnifying glass from his pocket and closely examined it. A smile of triumph spread over his smooth and swarthy face. He handed back the chain. He was about to speak. Suddenly he caught sight of Mrs Ramsay's face. It was so white that she looked as though she were about to faint. She was staring at him with wide and terrified eyes. They held a desperate appeal; it was so clear that I wondered why her husband did not see it.
Mr Kelada stopped with his mouth open. He flushed deeply. You could almost see the effort he was making over himself.
'I was mistaken,' he said.' It's a very good imitation, but of course as soon as I looked through my glass I saw that it wasn't real. I think eighteen dollars is just about as much as the damned thing's worth.'
He took out his pocket-book and from it a hundred-dollar note. He handed it to Ramsay without a word.
'Perhaps that'll teach you not to be so cocksure another time, my young friend,' said Ramsay as he took the note.
I noticed that Mr Kelada's hands were trembling.
The story spread over the ship as stories do, and he had to put up with a good deal of chaff that evening. It was a fine joke that Mr Know-All had been caught out. But Mrs Ramsay retired to her state-room with a headache.
Next morning I got up and began to shave. Mr Kelada lay on his bed smoking a cigarette. Suddenly there was a small scraping sound and I saw a letter pushed under the door. I opened the door and looked out. There was nobody there. I picked up the letter and saw that it was addressed to Max Kelada. The name was written in block letters. I handed it to him.
'Who's this from?' He opened it. 'Oh!'
He took out of the envelope, not a letter, but a hundred-dollar note. He looked at me and again he reddened. He tore the envelope into little bits and gave them to me.
'Do you mind just throwing them out of the port-hole?'
I did as he asked, and then I looked at him with a smile.
'No one likes being made to look a perfect damned fool,' he said.
'Were the pearls real?'
'If I had a pretty little wife I shouldn't let her spend a year in New York while I stayed at Kobe,' said he.
At that moment I did not entirely dislike Mr Kelada. He reached out for his pocket-book and carefully put in it the hundred-dollar note.
The Romantic Young Lady
One of the many inconveniences of real life is that it seldom gives you a complete story. Some incident has excited your interest, the people who are concerned in it are in the devil's own muddle, and you wonder what on earth will happen next. Well, generally nothing happens. The inevitable catastrophe you foresaw wasn't inevitable after all, and high tragedy, without any regard to artistic decency, dwindles into drawing-room comedy. Now, growing old has many disadvantages, but it has this compensation (among, let us admit, not a few others), that sometimes it gives you the opportunity of seeing what was the outcome of certain events you had witnessed long ago. You had given up the hope of ever knowing what was the end of the story, and then, when you least expected it, it is handed to you on a platter.
These reflections occurred to me when, having escorted the Marquesa de San Esteban to her car, I went back into the hotel and sat down again in the lounge. I ordered a cocktail, lit a cigarette, and composed myself to order my recollections. The hotel was new and splendid, it was like every other first-class hotel in Europe, and I had been regretting that for the sake of its modern plumbing I had deserted the old-fashioned, picturesque Hotel de Madrid to which I generally went when I stayed in Seville. It was true that from my hotel I had a view of the noble river, the Guadalquivir, but that did not make up for the thГ©s dansants that filled the bar-lounge two or three days a week with a fashionable crowd whose exuberant conversation almost drowned the strident din of a jazz orchestra.
I had been out all the afternoon, and coming in found myself in the midst of a seething mob. I went to the desk and asked for my key so that I might go straight up to my room. But the porter, handing it to me, said that a lady had been asking for me.
'For me?'
'She wants to see you very much. It's the Marquesa de San Esteban.'
I knew no one of that name.
'It must be some mistake.'
As I said the words, looking rather vaguely around, a lady came up to me with outstretched hands and a bright smile on her lips. To the best of my knowledge I had never seen her before in my life. She seized my hands, both of them, and shook them warmly. She spoke in fluent French.
'How very nice to see you again after all these years. I saw by the paper that you were staying here and I said to myself: I must look him up. How many years is it since we danced together? I daren't think. Do you still dance? I do. And I'm a grandmother. I'm fat of course, I don't care, and it keeps me from getting fatter.'
She talked with such a rush that it took my breath away to listen to her. She was a stout, more than middle-aged woman, very much made up, with dark red hair, obviously dyed, cut short; and she was dressed in the height of Parisian fashion, which never suits Spanish women very well. But she had a gay, fruity laugh that made you feel you wanted to laugh too. It was quite obvious that she thoroughly enjoyed life. She was a fine figure of a woman and I could well believe that in youth she had been beautiful. But I could not place her.
'Come and drink a glass of champagne with me and we will talk of old times. Or will you have a cocktail? Our dear old Seville had changed, you see. ThГ©s dansants and cocktails. It's just like Paris and London now. We've caught up. We're a civilized people.'
She led me to a table near the space where they were dancing and we sat down. I could not go on pretending I was at ease; I thought I should only get into a fearful mess.