Mr. Glazebrook, adjusting his knowledge of the limitations of Mrs. Waterlow's purse to his present appreciation of the pagoda and of her desire for it, said genially, after a moment, that from an old customer like herself he would ask only forty-five shillings.
"Well, I think it's a great bargain, Mr. Glazebrook," said Mrs. Waterlow. "And I'll have it."
"Shall I send it round?" Mr. Glazebrook asked.
"Yes, please; or, no, it isn't heavy,"--she lifted it with both hands, rising with it and looking like a Saint Barbara holding her tower,--"I can manage it to just round the corner. Wrap it up for me, and I'll carry it off myself."
When Owen saw his cousin again at lunch, the red lacquer box had not yet arrived, and, with a touch of friendly mockery, he said:
"Well, you have been unlucky, my dear Gwen. There was the most charming piece of old Chinese porcelain in that scorned Cheltenham box, and I saw Mr. Glazebrook sell it this morning to a lady who wasn't to be put off by dust and newspapers and plush-framed plaques. She carried it off in triumph, saying that it was a great bargain. And so it was; but she might have had it for half the money if she hadn't informed Mr. Glazebrook of its probable value."
Gwendolen fixed her mild, violet eyes upon him. "A piece of old Chinese porcelain? Do you mean that silly white pagoda?"
"See it? Haven't I seen it all my life? It stood on a purple worsted mat on a little bamboo table between the Nottingham lace curtains in one of Aunt Pickthorne's drawing-room windows, and looked like some piece of childish gimcrackery bought at a bazaar, where, I'll wager, she did buy it."
"Well, Mrs. Waterlow evidently didn't think it gimcrackery, or, if she did, she didn't mind. It looked to me, I confess, an exquisite thing. But her admiration may have lent it its enchantment."
Gwendolen's eyes now fixed themselves more searchingly than before.
"Mrs. Waterlow? Did Mrs. Waterlow buy it? How did you know it was Mrs. Waterlow? I thought you'd never met her."
"I haven't; but I heard Mr. Glazebrook call her by her name. She'd wanted to buy a red lacquer box that I spotted in the window and had gone in to get for you, my dear Gwen. It was too expensive for her,--so that it is yours,--and she went rummaging into the back shop and found your box with the things just as you and Mr. Glazebrook had left them, and in no time she'd disinterred the pagoda."