It
was made of the soft plumage of rare Hawaiian birds, and had taken
twenty years to make; each feather was crescent-shaped, and there
were wonderful designs in crimson and gold and black. Every day in
the casual conversation of your acquaintances you heard of similar
incredible things; a tiny antique Persian rug, which could be folded
into an overcoat pocket, for ten thousand dollars; a set of five
"art fans," each blade painted by a famous artist and costing
forty-three thousand dollars; a crystal cup for eighty thousand; an
edition de luxe of the works of Dickens for a hundred thousand; a
ruby, the size of a pigeon's egg, for three hundred thousand. In
some of these great New York palaces there were fountains which cost
a hundred dollars a minute to run; and in the harbour there were
yachts which cost twenty thousand a month to keep in commission.
And that same day, as it chanced, he learned of a brand-new kind of
squandering. He went home to lunch with Mrs. Winnie Duval, and there
met Mrs. Caroline Smythe, with whom he had talked at Castle Havens.
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