in the background but for some reason not so negligible as he might have been. “Won’t you all sit down, please,” the jeweler continued. He arranged chairs. Madden drew his close to the desk; the air seemed charged with his presence; he dwarfed them all.
“No need of any preamble,” said the millionaire. “We’ve come to see those pearls.”
Eden started. “My dear sir—I’m afraid I gave you the wrong impression. The pearls are not in San Francisco at present.”
Madden stared at him. “But when you told me to come here and meet the owner—”
“I’m so sorry—I meant just that.”
Sally Jordan helped him out. “You see, Mr. Madden, I had no intention of selling the necklace when I came here from Honolulu. I was moved to that decision by events after I reached here. But I have sent for it—”
The girl spoke. She had thrown back the fur about her neck, and she was beautiful in her way, but cold and hard like her father—and just now, evidently, unutterably bored. “I thought of course the pearls were here,” she said, “or I should not have come.”
“Well, it isn’t going to hurt you,” her father snapped. “Mrs. Jordan, you say you’ve sent for the necklace?”
“Yes. It will leave Honolulu tonight, if all goes well. It should be here in six days.”
“No good,” said Madden. “My daughter’s starting tonight for Denver. I go south in the morning, and in a week I expect to join her in Colorado and we’ll travel east together. No good, you see.”
“I will agree to deliver the necklace anywhere you say,” suggested Eden.
