The young man went in search of cheaper wares. These he spread out solemnly as if they were things of price, saying by his manner, "Pay attention to all this magnificence!"
"These are much more expensive," said he. "They have never been worn; they have come by courier direct from the manufacturers at Lahore."
"Oh! I see," said she; "they are much more like the thing I want."
The shopman kept his countenance in spite of inward irritation, which communicated itself to Duronceret and Bixiou. The Englishwoman, cool as a cucumber, appeared to rejoice in her phlegmatic humor.
"What price?" she asked, indicating a sky-blue shawl covered with a pattern of birds nestling in pagodas.
"Seven thousand francs."
She took it up, wrapped it about her shoulders, looked in the glass, and handed it back again.
"No, I do not like it at all." (Je n'ame pouinte.)
A long quarter of an hour went by in trying on other shawls; to no purpose.
"This is all we have, madame," said the assistant, glancing at the master as he spoke.
"Madame is fastidious, like all persons of taste," said the head of the establishment, coming forward with that tradesman's suavity in which pomposity is agreeably blended with subservience. The Englishwoman took up her eyeglass and scanned the manufacturer from head to foot, unwilling to understand that the man before her was eligible for Parliament and dined at the Tuileries.
"I have only one shawl left," he continued, "but I never show it. It is not to everybody's taste; it is quite out of the common. I was thinking of giving it to my wife. We have had it in stock since 1805; it belonged to the Empress Josephine."
"Let me see it, monsieur."
"Go for it," said the master, turning to a shopman. "It is at my house."
"I should be very much pleased to see it," said the English lady.
This was a triumph. The splenetic dame was apparently on the point of going. She made as though she saw nothing but the shawls; but all the while she furtively watched the shopmen and the two customers, sheltering her eyes behind the rims of her eyeglasses.
"It cost sixty thousand francs in Turkey, madame."
"Oh!" (hau!)
"It is one of seven shawls which Selim sent, before his fall, to the Emperor Napoleon. The Empress Josephine, a Creole, as you know, my lady, and very capricious in her tastes, exchanged this one for another brought by the Turkish ambassador, and purchased by my predecessor; but I have never seen the money back. Our ladies in France are not rich enough; it is not as it is in England. The shawl is worth seven thousand francs; and taking interest and compound interest altogether, it makes up fourteen or fifteen thousand by now--"
"How does it make up?" asked the Englishwoman.
"Here it is, madame."
With precautions, which a custodian of the Dresden Grune Gewolbe might have admired, he took out an infinitesimal key and opened a square cedar-wood box. The Englishwoman was much impressed with its shape and plainness. From that box, lined with black satin, he drew a shawl worth about fifteen hundred francs, a black pattern on a golden-yellow ground, of which the startling color was only surpassed by the surprising efforts of the Indian imagination.
"Splendid," said the lady, in a mixture of French and English, "it is really handsome. Just my ideal" (ideol) "of a shawl; it is very magnificent." The rest was lost in a madonna's pose assumed for the purpose of displaying a pair of frigid eyes which she believed to be very fine.
"It was a great favorite with the Emperor Napoleon; he took----"
"A great favorite," repeated she with her English accent. Then she arranged the shawl about her shoulders and looked at herself in the glass. The proprietor took it to the light, gathered it up in his hands, smoothed it out, showed the gloss on it, played on it as Liszt plays on the pianoforte keys.
"It is very fine; beautiful, sweet!" said the lady, as composedly as possible.
Duronceret, Bixiou, and the shopmen exchanged amused glances. "The shawl is sold," they thought.
"Well, madame?" inquired the proprietor, as the Englishwoman appeared to be absorbed in meditations infinitely prolonged.
"Decidedly," said she; "I would rather have a carriage" (une voteure).
All the assistants, listening with silent rapt attention, started as one man, as if an electric shock had gone through them.
"I have a very handsome one, madame," said the proprietor with unshaken composure; "it belonged to a Russian princess, the Princess Narzicof; she left it with me in payment for goods received. If madame would like to see it, she would be astonished. It is new; it has not been in use altogether for ten days; there is not its like in Paris."
The shopmen's amazement was suppressed by profound admiration.
"I am quite willing."
"If madame will keep the shawl," suggested the proprietor, "she can try the effect in the carriage." And he went for his hat and gloves.
"How will this end?" asked the head assistant, as he watched his employer offer an arm to the English lady and go down with her to the jobbed brougham.