"I would not mind his wry faces at all," said her friend. "He does not mean any thing by them. Depend upon it, he is as proud to see you wear handsome things as any man, after he has once paid for them. Then, besides, perhaps the man will take something off from the thousand francs."
"I will ask him," said Almira.
So she called the shopman to her, and asked him in French whether he could not take eight hundred francs for the bracelet.
She accosted him in French, for that is the language of Geneva; and the two ladies had talked very freely to each other in English, supposing that neither the shopkeeper nor the new party of customers would understand what they were saying. But it happened that the shopkeeper himself, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Holiday, understood English very well, and thus he knew the meaning of all that the ladies had been saying; and he was too well acquainted with human nature not to know that the end of such a consultation and deliberation as that would be the purchase of the bracelet, and was therefore not at all disposed to abate the price.
"No, madam," said he, speaking in French, and in a very polite and obliging manner; "I cannot vary from the price I named at all. We are obliged to adopt the system of having only one price here. Besides, that bracelet could not possibly be afforded for less than a thousand francs. Earlier in the season we asked twelve hundred francs for it; and I assure you, madam, that it is a great bargain at a thousand."
After looking at the bracelet a little longer, and holding it up again in different lights, and hearing her friend's solicitations that she would purchase it repeated in various forms, Almira finally concluded to take it.
It may seem, at first view, that Almira's friend evinced a great deal of generosity in urging her thus to buy an ornament more rich and costly than she could hope to purchase for herself; but her secret motive was not a generous one at all. She wished to quote Almira's example to her own husband, as a justification for her having bought a richer piece of jewelry than he would otherwise have approved of.
"Mine only cost eight hundred francs," she was going to say; "and cousin Almira bought one that cost a thousand."
In this way she hoped to exhibit to her husband that which he might otherwise have regarded as foolish extravagance in the light of self-denial and prudent economy.
In the mean time, while Almira and her friend had been making their purchases at the table, another shopman had been displaying a great many trays to Mrs. Holiday on one of the counters. The ornaments contained in these trays were by no means as costly as those which had been shown to the two ladies at the table; for Mrs. Holiday had said to the shopman, as she came in, that she wished to see only some simple pins and other ornaments worth from fifty to one hundred francs. They were, however, just as pretty in Mrs. Holiday's opinion. Indeed, the beauty of such ornaments as these seldom has any relation to the costliness of them. This, however, constitutes no reason, in the opinion of many ladies, why they should buy the less expensive ones; for with these ladies it is the costliness of an ornament, rather than the beauty of it, that constitutes its charm.
The two ladies paid for their purchases with gold coins which they took from elegant gold-mounted porte-monnaies that they carried in their hands, and then, with a dash and a flourish, went away.
Mrs. Holiday took up one after another of the ornaments before her, and looked at them with a musing air and manner, that seemed to denote that her thoughts were not upon them. She was thinking how erroneous an estimate those ladies form of the comparative value of the different sources of happiness within the reach of women who sacrifice the confidence and love of their husbands to the possession of a pearl necklace or a diamond pin.
Mrs. Holiday finally bought two ornaments, and Rollo bought two also. Rollo's were small pins. They were very pretty indeed. One of them cost twelve francs, and the other fifteen. His mother asked him whether he was going to wear them himself.
"O, no, mother," said he; "I have bought them to give away."
His mother then asked him whom he was going to give them to. He laughed, and said that that was a secret. He would tell her, however, he said, whom one of them was for. It was for his cousin Lucy.
"And which of them is for her?" asked his mother.
"This one," said Rollo. So saying he showed his mother the one that cost twelve francs.
CHAPTER XVI. A FORTUNATE ACCIDENT.
The day before Rollo left Geneva, he met with an accident which his father called a fortunate one, though Rollo himself was at first inclined to consider it quite an unfortunate one. The reason why Mr. Holiday considered it fortunate was, that no evil result followed from it, except giving Rollo a good fright. "It is always a lucky thing for a boy," said Mr. Holiday, "when he meets with any accident that frightens him well, provided it does not hurt him much."
The accident that happened to Rollo was this: There was a boy at the hotel, who had recently come with his father and mother from India. He was the son of an English army officer. His name was Gerald. He was a tall and handsome boy, and was about a year older than Rollo.
In the afternoon of the day before the party were to leave Geneva, Rollo came in from the quay, where he had been out to take a walk, and asked permission to go out on the lake, a little way, in a boat, with Gerald.
"Does Gerald understand how to manage a boat?" asked Mr. Holiday.
"O, yes, sir," said Rollo. "He has been all over the world, and he knows how to manage every thing. Besides, I can manage a boat myself well enough to go out on this lake. It is as smooth as a mill pond."
"Very well," said Mr. Holiday. "Only it must not be a sail boat. You must take oars; and look out well that the Rhone does not catch you."
Rollo understood very well that his father meant by this that he must be careful not to let the current, which was all the time drawing the water of the lake off under the bridge, and thus forming the Rhone below, carry the boat down. Rollo said that he would be very careful; and off he went to rejoin Gerald on the quay.
Gerald was already in the boat. He had with him, also, a Swiss boy, whom he had engaged to go too, as a sort of attendant, and to help row, if necessary. An English boy, in such cases, never considers the party complete unless he has some one to occupy the place of a servant, and to be under his command.
So the three boys got into the boat, and pushed off from the shore. For a time every thing went on well and pleasantly. Rollo and the others had a fine time in rowing to and fro over the smooth water, from one beautiful point of land to another, on the lake shores, and sometimes in lying still on the calm surface, to rest from the labor, and to amuse themselves in looking down in the beautiful blue depths beneath them, and watching the fishes that were swimming about there. At last, in the course of their manoeuvrings, they happened to take the boat rather too near the bridge. The attention of the boys was at the time directed to something that they saw in the water; and they did not perceive how near the bridge they were until Rollo happened to observe that the stones at the bottom seemed to be rapidly moving along in the direction towards the lake.
"My!" said Rollo; "see how fast the stones are going!"
"The stones!" exclaimed Gerald, starting up, and seizing an oar. "It's the boat! We are going under the bridge, as sure as fate! Put out your oar, Rollo, and pull for your life! Pull!"
Both Rollo and the Swiss boy immediately put out their oars and pulled; but Gerald soon found that the current was too strong for them. In spite of all they could do, the boat was evidently slowly drifting towards the bridge.
"It is of no use," said Gerald, at last. "We shall have to go through; but that will do no harm if we can only manage to keep her from striking the piers. Take in your oars, boys, and let me pull her round so as to head down stream, and you stand ready to fend off when we are going under."