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.