“It is scarcely,” said Mr. Prohack, surveying the trinket judicially on his wife’s neck, “scarcely the necklace of my dreams,—­not that I would say a word against it....  Ah!” And he pounced suddenly, with an air of delighted surprise, upon a fifth necklace, the queen of necklaces.

“My dear, try this one.  Try this one.  I didn’t notice it before.  Somehow it takes my fancy, and as I shall obviously see much more of your necklace than you will, I should like my taste to be consulted.”

As he fastened the catch of the thing upon Eve’s delicious nape, he could feel that she was trembling.  He surveyed the dazzling string.  She also surveyed it, fascinated, spellbound.  Even Mr. Prohack began to perceive that the reputation and value of fine pearls might perhaps be not entirely unmerited in the world.

“Sixteen thousand five hundred,” said the expert.

“Pounds or guineas?” Mr. Prohack blandly enquired.

“Well, sir, shall we say pounds?”

“I think I will take it,” said Mr. Prohack with undiminished blandness.  “No, my dear, don’t take it off.  Don’t take it off.”

“Arthur!” Eve breathed, seeming to expire in a kind of agonised protest.

“May I have a few minutes’ private conversation with my wife?” Mr. Prohack suggested.  “Could you leave us?” One expert glanced at the other awkwardly.

“Pardon my lack of savoir vivre,” said Mr. Prohack.  “Of course you cannot possibly leave us alone with all these valuables.  Never mind!  We will call again.”

The principal expert rose sublimely to the great height of the occasion.  He had a courageous mind and was moreover well acquainted with the fantastic folly of allowing customers to call again.  Within his experience of some thirty years he had not met half a dozen exceptions to the rule that customers who called again, if ever they did call, called in a mood of hard and miserly sanity which for the purposes of the jewellery business was sickeningly inferior to their original mood.

“Please, please, Mr. Prohack!” said he, with grand deprecation, and departed out of the room with his fellow.

No sooner had they gone than the wall sank.  It did not tumble with a crash; it most gently subsided.

“Arthur!” Eve exclaimed, with a curious uncertainty of voice.  “Are you mad?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Prohack.

“Well,” said she.  “If you think I shall walk about London with sixteen thousand five hundred pounds round my neck you’re mistaken.”

“But I insist!  You were a martyr and our marriage was ruined because I didn’t give you real pearls.  I intend you shall have real pearls.”

“But not these,” said Eve.  “It’s too much.  It’s a fortune.”

“I am aware of that,” Mr. Prohack agreed.  “But what is sixteen thousand five hundred pounds to me?”

“Truly I couldn’t, darling,” Eve wheedled.

“I am not your darling,” said Mr. Prohack.  “How can I be your darling when you’re never going to forgive me?  Look here.  I’ll let you choose another necklace, but only on the condition that you forgive all my alleged transgressions, past, present and to come.”