The Beautiful Blonde Liked Emeralds

Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.

(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:

Presently a tall graceful blonde, radiantly beautiful, exquisitely gowned, completely sure of herself, tapped Monsieur Gotin with her fan. ‘Comment vas-tu, Coco?’ she said, addressing him familiarly.
‘Ah, Margot, te voici,’ he replied, ‘I thought you were in the South of France with your sugar millionaire. Is he tired of you or you of him?
‘Six of one and half a dozen of the other,’ said she calmly. ‘Both of us like variety. You know I tire of any man after a month. Tiens, who is your young friend? I like the look of him. Why don’t you introduce him to me? You know my weakness for unspoiled youngsters.’
With no very good grace he introduced us. I bowed. She took my hand in hers. ‘I hope we shall be very good friends,’ she said.
‘Not if I can help it,’ said Monsieur Gotin decidedly. ‘I am in charge of this young man’s morals. Besides, Margot, I must reveal to you that he has no money to speak of and cannot pay for luxuries you are accustomed to. He has to work for his living.’
She pouted her lips and acted like a child to whom a favor has been denied. ‘With your permission,’ she said, and seated herself at our table. It was then that I noticed more closely the jewels she was wearing, a fine emerald ring, a fine golden chain round her neck which supported a piece of filigree with another large emerald in the center, two emeralds in her ears. No other jewelry.
‘Coffee?’ asked Monsieur Gotin.
‘A bottle of champagne,’ she said without hesitation.
‘You shall have what you want, Margot,’ he shrugged, ‘particularly as nothing could have been more calculated to put my young friend off you than that?’
‘How is that?’ she said, powdering her nose, and looking at me out of her great eyes, her large rather prominent eyes that looked so strangely childlike.
‘A friendship based upon champagne cannot be an alluring prospect for a young man who has just arrived in Paris with his way to make,’ said Monsieur Gotin smugly.
‘But I only make those pay who have the money,’ she replied, ‘and whose only attraction is a well-stuffed pocket book. You know, Coco, that when it suits me I can be generous, and for the time being I have no amant.’
Whereupon she started to talk to me in great good humor, asking me about myself and drawing me out marvelously. ‘You speak very good French,’ she said graciously.
‘You flatter me, mademoiselle,’ I said. ‘My French is school French and I am not fluent, I fear.’
‘That is just why you should at once adopt the only method of acquiring real fluency in our beautiful language,’ she said slyly.
‘What method is that?’ asked I, thinking of Ollendorf.
‘To sleep with your teacher,’ she said.
‘That will do,’ said Monsieur Gotin severely.
‘It will indeed,’ said Margot, ‘since you are determined to frustrate me, Coco. But all the same, I tell you that your young friend shall become my friend. But now I must leave you, messieurs,’ she said, rising. ‘I must go and find someone willing to part with ten louis for the pleasure of my company from now until breakfast time. I’m absolutely broke.’ She pressed into my hand her ivory card and disappeared with a wave of the hand among the milling crowd.
‘A delightful woman,’ said Monsieur Gotin, leaning over and taking the card out of my hand before I knew what he was doing. ‘Not the ordinary putain. She comes of excellent family and had a convent education. But,’ he added dispassionately, ‘she is passionate’—he tapped the table—‘unaccountable’—another tap—‘restless’—tap—‘and fearfully extravagant. She has ruined at least two fils de famille and will doubtless ruin more. I am not going to have her play with you, my young friend.’
‘But you introduced me to her?’ I said, bewildered.
‘Precisely. Hence it is my responsibility that you should go no farther with her.’ He tore the little card into tiny pieces.
‘The emeralds,’ I stammered, for their luster had been more on my mind than the beauty of their wearer. ‘They are lovely. And she says she is broke.’
‘Ah, the emeralds,’ he said. ‘They are Margot’s true passion. She would not part with one of them if she were starving, I believe. And she never wears anything but emeralds. She is a good judge and makes her admirers buy her the best.’
However, I was less interested in the handsome Margot than in her emeralds, and less interested in emeralds than, at the moment, finding my feet in Paris and holding down my job. My principal occupied a six room bachelor apartment in the vicinity of the Grand Opera. One room served him as an office, and when I entered upon my new duties another was assigned to me as a bedroom. It was really no more than a boxroom and I could scarcely turn round in it, but as the arrangement save me at least fifty francs a month, I was not dissatisfied.

The Beautiful Blonde Liked Emeralds (continued)