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The man closed it up again, and rested it lightly on his palm,
looking at it with pursed lips: “Thirty pounds.”
“I want forty pounds.”
“Will you settle for thirty-five pounds?”
“Done.”
Bart fingered the crisp new notes and folded them carefully in an
inside pocket. The window of the shop was full of silverware, different
types of jewellery and rings. He stopped, looking at the rings. Some of
them looked quite decent. You’d never guess they were second-hand.
But they wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.
He turned into an arcade and lingered outside a smaller shop. To
his inexperienced eye, the rings in the brilliantly-lighted window all
looked the same. The ones marked fifty pounds didn’t look any better
than those marked thirty pounds. He supposed there was a difference, but
thirty-five pounds was his maximum; thirty pounds preferably.
He wandered through the arcade looking into the lighted
windows of the tiny jewellers’ shops. The diamond rings set against
velvet backgrounds were different in design and size, but he had no clue
to their comparative value. There was only one he liked, but it had no
price on it. It stood aside from the others on an island of blue velvet, the
concealed light trained on it so skillfully that the stone shot blue and
yellow fire.
Out in the street again he stopped in front of a small window
where a bald-headed man was bowed over a watch, an instrument like a
small binocular clamped to his eye. There were only a few things in the
window, a tray of opals, some watch-chains and watches and half a
dozen rings. There was something homely about the shop which told of
honest trade; not a place set up patently and obviously to lure you in and
sell you something. He went in; and the jeweller looked up from his
work. His face was flabby and pallid, and faded eyes wavered in their
effort to adjust themselves after the close work on the mechanism of the
watch.
“Well?” His voice was tired, but there was a rather friendly look
about his plump figure with the rolled-up shirt-sleeves and the gaping
waistcoat.
“I want to see a ring.”
“What sort of ring?”
“A diamond ring.”
“Ah!” He stretched into the small window and picked up a small
tray on which rested a pad containing six rings. Bart looked at them
feeling foolish and helpless.

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