 | Daughter of Two Lands |  |
I.
It seemed more like a smart tea or reception than an auction sale. Society women, gorgeously gowned, chatted eagerly with each other, or pushed their way to the front. Their eyes were bright and keen, their faces flushed with that eager expression which games of chance always bring to the features of American women, giving them a curiously sexless look, and, in a moment, robbing them of all their vaunted beauty.
Knowing well the nature of his customers, the auctioneer had chosen a fitting place for his wares, and the latter were spread out with sumptuous taste. Such a collection was indeed unlikely to be offered again within the span of a life-time. The Chinese treasures had been gathered by an American diplomat during a few years' sojourn in the Orient. One object of art or archaic treasure after another was sold; a fortune was already piled up for the late owner of the treasure.
“I'm just played out—and broke!” breathlessly confessed a flossy-haired little matron, who was arrayed in fleecy finery suitable for a fête. She tapped off on her fingers the various articles she had acquired, gloatingly triumphing over having obtained this or that bit of bronze or porcelain.
“What did you get, Mr. Carruthers?”
A half-whimsical smile flickered around the lips of the cadaverous gentleman, whose own private collections were famous. His wife giggled with half-chiding pride in her husband's attainments.
“He paid five hundred dollars for one of Buddha's best back teeth,” she said flippantly.
“Nonsense,” protested the man.
“It's a fact,” insisted the woman shrilly, her high nasal voice curiously unpleasant, “and anyhow if it wasn't that exactly, it was something equally as silly—a temple relic of some obscure sort.”
“What I'd like to know,” chipped in a third woman of the party, a good-looking young individual of the “horsey” type, “is this: Granted that the Wardwells were the particularly cherished pets of many high officials in China, and therefore—er—came naturally by—well—some of this, how on earth, will you tell me, did they acquire temple treasures, archaeological specimens, and—what not? I always thought the Chinese held such things so sacred that not even the priests—or the Emperors for that matter—could either give them away or sell them. How came the formidable 'foreign devils' by such treasure, my friends?”
The blonde-haired lady had finished her calculations and snapped closed her note book.
“Those are questions, my dear,” said she, smilingly, “for the 'heathen chinee' to ask—not us.”
The girl who sat beside her leaned suddenly forward. She had bought nothing and had sat throughout the sale with her hands clasped spasmodically in her muff, her eyes down- drooped, as though she dared not raise them. Her voice trembled slightly.
“I always thought,” she said—and there was the least foreign lisp in her speech—“that the receivers of stolen goods were as culpable as—the thieves.”
“Tut, tut,” exclaimed Mrs. Fanton—she of the flossy hair. “What did you buy, my dear?”
“Nothing, at all.”
“No?”
Mrs. Fanton looked at her sharply, and even the renowned collector regarded her with some anxiety.
“You don't think them spurious, do you?” asked his wife in a tone of dismay.
There was a moment of anxious silence before the
“No—they are the real thing,” she said, and then, almost whispering: “That's why I could not—would not—have them.”
“Silly child!” exclaimed Mrs. Fanton, in a tone of relief. “You, a little half-Jap, disdaining rare treasures like these. Listen to her, Lieutenant Burrows—do!”
The latter had been standing behind the girl's chair throughout the afternoon, though they had scarcely spoken. He had brought her to this sale of oriental loot, and had watched her with mixed feelings, as she sat throughout it with averted face, all her brightness gone—shocked out of her.
“I suppose,” went on Mrs. Fanton, with a side glance at the girl that was half caressing, half cattish, “that Sakura, as a Japanese, simply wants to show her contempt for mere Chinese art—eh?”
“Believe that, if you wish,” said the girl, rising suddenly, “and—good-bye, Mrs. Fanton.”
“Going? Good-bye, dear.” And she turned to whisper the girl's history to her companions before she was barely out of sight.
| Daughter of Two Lands | |