He went on, as he had always
gone, seeing and hearing this seething life only as a background to his own
adventure. He reached his destination. Pushing his way through a swarm of
urchins playing in front of a pawnshop, he entered and was a long time
inside, and when he came out again at last the whole expression of his face
had undergone a striking change. As one who had found the solace he needed
for the moment, his pace unconsciously quickened and he looked about him
with brighter eyes.
Around the corner from his home, he went into a small jewelry shop, a
remnant of the town of the past. There were no customers in the place, and
the old Galician jeweler sat at the back playing solitaire. At sight of
Roger he arose; and presently in a small back room, beneath the glare of a
powerful lamp, the two were studying the ring which Roger had found in the
ghetto that night. It was plain, just a thin worn band of gold with an
emerald by no means large; but the setting was old and curious, and
personal, distinctive. Somebody over in Europe had worked on it long and
lovingly. Now as the Galician gently rubbed and polished and turned the
ring this way and that, the light revealed crude tiny figures, a man and a
woman under a tree. And was that a vine or a serpent? They studied it long
and absorbedly.
At home, up in his bedroom, Roger opened a safe which stood in one corner,
took out a large shallow tray and sat down with it by his lamp.
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