“C. Q.”; or, In the Wireless House
toms Service over the American in Paris and the compulsory information extorted from the jewelers of the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue de la Paix in return for being allowed to do business in peace, whereby every important sale is reported to the eager officials. The necklace had cost her $50,000. Against her husband’s express advice she had spent the entire amount on the pearls themselves instead of reserving a portion of the money to pay the duty, but the obvious difference between the necklace offered her for 150,000 francs and the present one at 250,000 had been too much for her and she had succumbed to the soft iridescence of the handful of weightless things, had set prudence aside, and with the idea of getting them in somehow without duty had hardly hesitated before purchasing the more expensive string. And can she be blamed?
Perfect—every one—bluish white, almost opalescent at times, the necklace contained thirty-nine pearls, absolutely matched on each side and graduated exactly from the big one in the center to the smaller ones at the ends next to the diamond clasp which in itself was a precious thing of value. She took them from102
