It was when they were passing through a small town that Peter caught sight of a leather-and-harness shop, and pulled up suddenly.
“I know what you want,” he said. “You want a dog-collar. I’m going to get you one. The kind with brass knobs.”
“A dog-collar? Whatever for? As a badge of ownership?”
“God forbid. To guard against the bites of sharks. Excellent also against thugs and throat-slitters.”
“My dear man!”
“Honestly. It’s too stiff to squeeze and it’ll turn the edge of a blade-and even if anybody hangs you by it, it won’t choke you as a rope would.”
“I can’t go about in a dog-collar.”
“Well, not in the day-time. But it would give confidence when patrolling at night. And you could sleep in it with a little practice. You needn’t bother to come in-I’ve had my hands round your neck often enough to guess the size.” He vanished into the shop and was seen through the window conferring with the proprietor. Presently he came out with a parcel and took the wheel again.
“The man was very much interested,” he observed, “in my bull-terrier bitch. Extremely plucky animal, but reckless and obstinate fighter. Personally, he said, he preferred greyhounds. He told me where I could get my name and address put on the collar, but I said that could wait. Now we’re out of the town, you can try it on.”
He drew in to the side of the road for this purpose, and assisted her (with, Harriet fancied, a touch of self-satisfaction), to buckle the heavy strap. It was a massive kind of necklace and quite surprisingly uncomfortable. Harriet fished in her bag for a hand-mirror and surveyed the effect.
“Rather becoming, don’t you think?” said Peter. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t set a new fashion.”
“I do,” said Harriet. “Do you mind taking it off again.”
“Will you wear it?”
“Suppose somebody grabs at it from behind.”
“Let go and fall back on them-heavily. You’ll fall soft, and with luck they’ll crack their skull open.”
“ Bloodthirsty monster. Very well. I’ll do anything you like if you’ll take it off now.”
“That’s a promise,” said he, and released her. “That collar,” he added, wrapping it up again and laying it on her knee, “deserves to be put in a glass case.”
“Why?”
“It’s the only thing you’ve ever let me give you.”
“Except my life-except my life-except my life.”
“Damn!” said Peter, and stared out angrily over the windscreen. “It must have been a pretty bitter gift, if you can’t let either of us forget it.”
“I’m sorry, Peter. That was ungenerous and beastly of me. You shall give me something if you want to.”
“May I? What shall I give you? Roc’s eggs are cheap today.”
For a moment her mind was a blank. Whatever she asked him for, it must be something adequate. The trivial, the commonplace or the merely expensive would all be equally insulting. And he would know in a moment if she was inventing a want to please him…
“Peter-give me the ivory chessmen.”
He looked so delighted that she felt sure he had expected to be snubbed with a request for something costing seven-and-sixpence.
“My dear-of course! Would you like them now?”
“This instant! Some miserable undergraduate may be snapping them up. Every day I go out I expect to find them gone. Be quick.”
“All right. I’ll engage not to drop below seventy, except in the thirty-mile limit.”
“Oh, God!” said Harriet, as the car started. Fast driving terrified her, as he very well knew. After five breath-taking miles, he shot a glance sideways at her, to see how she was standing it, and slacked his foot from the accelerator.
“That was my triumph song. Was it a bad four minutes?”
“I asked for it ” said Harriet with set teeth. “Go on.”
“I’m damned if I will. We will go at a reasonable pace and risk the undergraduate, damn his bones!”
The ivory chessmen were, however, still in the window when they arrived. Peter subjected them to a hard and monocled stare, and said:
“They look all right.”
“They’re lovely. Admit that when I do do a thing, I do it handsomely. I’ve asked you now for thirty-two presents at once.”
“It sounds like Through the Looking-Glass. Are you coming in, or will you leave me to fight it out by myself?”
“Of course I’m coming in. Why?-Oh! Am I looking too keen?”
“Much too keen.”
“Well, I don’t care. I’m coming in.”
The shop was dark, and crowded with a strange assortment of first-class stuff, junk, and traps for the unwary. The proprietor, however, had all his wits about him and, recognizing after a preliminary skirmish of superlatives that he had to do with an obstinate, experienced and well-informed customer, settled down with something like enthusiasm to a prolonged siege of the position. It had not previously occurred to Harriet that anybody could spend an hour and forty minutes in buying a set of chessmen. Every separate carved ball in every one of thirty-two pieces had to be separately and minutely examined with finger-tips and the naked eye and a watchmaker’s lens for signs of damage, repair, substitution or faulty workmanship; and only after a sharp catechism directed to the “provenance” of the set, and a long discussion about trade conditions in China, the state of the antique market generally and the effect of the American slump on prices, was any figure mentioned at all; and when it was mentioned, it was instantly challenged, and a further discussion followed, during which all the pieces were scrutinized again. This ended at length in Peter’s agreeing to purchase the set at the price named (which was considerably above his minimum, though within his maximum estimate) provided the board was included. The unusual size of the pieces made it necessary that they should have their own board; and the dealer rather reluctantly agreed, after having it firmly pointed out to him that the board was sixteenth-century Spanish-clean out of the period-and that it was therefore almost a condescension on the purchaser’s part to accept it as a gift.
The combat being now brought to an honourable conclusion, the dealer beamed pleasantly and asked where the parcel should be sent.
“We’ll take it with us,” said Peter, firmly. “If you’d rather have notes than a cheque-”
The dealer protested that the cheque would be quite all right but that the parcel would be a large one and take some time to make up, since the pieces ought all to be wrapped separately.
“We’re in no hurry,” said Peter. “We’ll take it with us”; thus conforming to the first rule of good nursery behaviour, that presents must always be taken and never delivered by the shop.
The dealer vanished upstairs to look for a suitable box, and Peter turned apologetically to Harriet.
“Sorry to be so long about it. You’ve chosen better than you knew. I’m no expert, but I’m very much mistaken if that isn’t a very fine and ancient set, and worth a good bit more than he wants for it. That’s why I haggled so much. When a thing looks like a bargain, there’s usually a snag about it somewhere. If one of those dashed pawns wasn’t the original, it would make the whole lot worthless.”
“I suppose so.” A disquieting thought struck Harriet. “If the set hadn’t been perfect, should you have bought it?”
“Not at any price.”
“Not if I still wanted it?”
“No. That’s the snag about me. Besides, you wouldn’t want it. You have the scholarly mind and you’d always feel uncomfortable knowing it was wrong, even if nobody else knew.”
“That’s true. Whenever anybody admired it I should feel obliged to say, ‘Yes, but one of the pawns is modern’-and that would get so tedious. Well, I’m glad they’re all right, because I love them with a perfectly idiotic passion. They have been haunting my slumbers for weeks. And even now I haven’t said thank you.”
“Yes, you have-and anyway, the pleasure is all mine… I wonder whether that spinet’s in order.”