ten o'clock in the morning
`` I have only , '' said I , `` to execute my commission and hand the box and its contents over to you . '' And , thus speaking , I laid the necklace in its case on the corn bin beside the duchess . The duchess said nothing at all . She looked at me once -- just once ; and I wished then and there that I had listened to Gustave de Berensac 's second thoughts and left with him at ten o'clock in the morning . Then having delivered this barbed shaft of the eyes , the duchess sat looking straight in front of her , bereft of her quick-changing glances , robbed of her supple grace -- like frozen quicksilver . And the necklace glittered away indifferently between us . At last the duchess , her eyes still fixed on the whitewashed wall opposite , said in a slow emphatic tone : `` I would n't touch it , if it were the crown of France ! ''