"Well," she said, "there was a lace dressing-gown about which I could not quite make up my mind. Perhaps, after all, I had better have it."
She turned back into the shop, and he followed her. The lace dressing-gown was still lying upon a chair, and in a few moments Deane found it being held up before him by a vivacious little Frenchwoman, who was endeavoring to convince him that in it Madame would look a dream. It was very filmy, very dainty, wonderfully expensive. Deane heard the price without moving a muscle.
"I think you had better have it," he said. "I am sure," he went on, looking into her eyes, "that you will look charming in it."
For the first time he seemed to score. She bent over some lace handkerchiefs, as though anxious to avoid his gaze. "Very well," she said, "I think that will be all now. Please pay, and let us go."
"I want a dressing-bag," she said, a little abruptly.
"By all means," he answered. "We had better go back to the jeweller's. Do you prefer mother-of-pearl fittings, or gold?"
"I am not sure," she answered. "I should like to look at some."
They were twenty minutes or so making a selection. Deane wrote another cheque, and stuffed another receipt into his pocket. He had made a few suggestions himself, which had increased the cost considerably.
"I want some gloves," she said. "Perhaps you would rather go back to your office now. I must not take up your whole afternoon."
"I am entirely at your service," he assured her. "Believe me, I find shopping quite an interesting novelty."
"You mean," she said, "that you like to watch the effect upon me. You think I don't understand. It is quite easy. Tell me how I seem to you?"
"You seem very much to the manner born," he answered, "but you seem also, if I may say so, as though you were getting rid of the pent-up desires of years. For instance," he added, as they strolled along the south side of the street, "there is a certain almost fierceness--I won't say barbarism--in the way you absorb the things you desire. I am not complaining," he added quickly. "As a matter of fact, I am rather inclined to welcome any note of humanity. So long as we are engaged," he added, looking at her sideways, "one would just as soon feel that one were engaged to a living person as an automaton."