It was a Friday afternoon. I had arranged a meeting with Cynthia, my best friend. We had not seen each other for three months. Three months before, she had left England and flew to Egypt, a country she had always wanted to visit. She had just returned and that was the first time I was supposed to see her. I had prepared spaghetti, some salad, I had also bought a bottle of wine. I knew that she would probably want to tell me a lot about her journey. I knew Cynthia very well and I was perfectly aware of the fact that she had bought me a present in Egypt. This is what she always does. Well, I was right because I was offered a beautiful cashmere wool quilt that day. It was a soft, brown quilt made of best quality wool. I looked at Cynthia in disbelief and explained that I couldn"t accept a gift like that. I knew that she was rather well-off and that the quilt could not have been extremely expensive for her. But I felt uneasy anyway. After all, somebody was offering me a very valuable present. But Cynthia assured me that the quilt, although it was certainly made of very good quality fabric, was not at all that expensive. She must have bought the cashmere wool quilt at a discount, I thought, or perhaps such things were not as expensive as I thought.