In order to convince his wife of her mistake, George took her next day to the establishment of Monsieur Ben Hassan, and was pleased to find that the nervous fear which had haunted her since her supposed vision faded away in the amusement of turning over the cheap trinkets and toys around her, as the obsequious proprietor, an active and voluble little Parisian, who would have been invaluable as a showman at a country fair, encouraged her to do. George asked him, to satisfy Nouna, whether he had not had a friend with him on the balcony two evenings before, a foreign gentleman, in whom, he said, he thought he recognised an old acquaintance. Ben Hassan said No, he had been working by himself to prepare his “Bazaar” for opening on the following day, and he had been alone except for the occasional assistance of the servant. He admitted also, with a charmingly candid shrug of the shoulders, that his name of Ben Hassan was assumed, that in private life he was simply Jules Dubois, and that there was no gentleman in the business who came from further East than the Faubourg Saint Antoine. Nouna, to tell the truth, hardly listened to this explanation. She was at heart still so much a child as to find, in trying on Tunisian earrings at a franc and a half a pair, and gold crescent brooches that could not be warranted to retain their colour a second time of wearing, as much pleasure as she had felt, a few weeks back, in decking herself with her wedding diamonds. Noticing this, the artful Ben Hassan informed the lady that he expected, in the course of a few days, a consignment of Indian jewellery which would be well worthy of Madame’s attention, as it was the most marvellously cheap and beautiful assortment that had ever been seen in France. Nouna’s face glowed with interest, which was repressed for the moment by her husband, who said coldly that Madame did not wear imitation jewellery; a statement which seemed calculated to be received with doubt, as Madame, now hung from head to foot with gilt chains and spangled handkerchiefs, was evidently very well satisfied with herself. However, the tactful Parisian bowed low and apologised, humbly observing that the wares in question were continually mounted, by desire of well-known ladies of the Boulevard Saint Germains, with real gems of the highest value. Nouna divested herself of the trinkets with manifest regret, and was with difficulty persuaded by her husband to buy a string of sandalwood beads instead of the barbaric rows of eye-dazzling brass on which her choice had first fallen. George was rather shocked; a taste for cheap finery in his wife seemed quite a new and startling development. As soon as they got on the stairs outside he said, in a low and puzzled voice: “You wouldn’t really care to have those gimcrack things, would you, Nouna?”