The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Chinese CoatThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Chinese CoatAuthor: Jennette LeeRelease date: August 2, 2016 [eBook #52699]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by David Widger from page images generouslyprovided by the Internet Archive*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHINESE COAT ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Chinese CoatAuthor: Jennette LeeRelease date: August 2, 2016 [eBook #52699]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by David Widger from page images generouslyprovided by the Internet Archive
Title: The Chinese Coat
Author: Jennette Lee
Author: Jennette Lee
Release date: August 2, 2016 [eBook #52699]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by David Widger from page images generouslyprovided by the Internet Archive
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHINESE COAT ***
0002
0010
CONTENTS
THE CHINESE COAT
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
Eleanor MORE walked away from the coat. She looked back at it across the glass case of fichus and ribbon bows, and went on down the aisle of show-cases to the coats and suits at the end. Stewart’s was having a sale of coats and suits, and Eleanor More was there—not because she could afford to buy anything, even at a sale, but because she was a woman.
She had been passing the store and seen the crowd pressing in through the wide doors... She had hesitated a minute and gone in.
It was nearly six o’clock now, and the crowd had thinned. Here and there a wandering figure could be seen, half ready for flight, pausing to peck at some bargain crumb; and helpers with long gray covers were appearing and shrouding the glass cases and counters for the night. The light in the shop began to seem gray and a little ghostly; out of it the gold and blue colors of the Chinese coat gleamed freshly, like a bit of Oriental flame caught in this dull sale of Western goods and held fast.
Eleanor More glanced at the coat again—down through the gray-shrouded counters. Then she turned swiftly and went back. It stood by itself on its dummy figure at the end of the glass cases; in the fading light from a window above, the fantastic gold shadows of the dragons chased each other and played hazily across it.
She halted before it, and half reached out her hand to it.
A woman with a large bust and paper cuffs on her sleeves came drifting toward her. “Anything I can show you, madam?”
Eleanor More looked up. “I was looking at this coat.” Her hand moved vaguely to the dragons.
The woman’s eyes followed the gesture. “It’s a great bargain!” She put out her hand to it.
“Would you like to slip it on?”
Eleanor More drew back. “Oh—I wasn’t thinking of buying. I was looking. I just happened—to see it——”
The woman’s hands were busy with the neck of the coat. She slipped it deftly from the lay figure and held it up. “No harm in trying,” she said.
Eleanor More looked at it and drew away—and came back. She held out her hands with a little laughing gesture.
“No—I cannot afford—” She put her hands into the blue sleeves with the quaint trailing ends and drew it up about her.
The woman gave a little pat to the shoulders and smiled, pointing to a long mirror at the right.
Eleanor More moved to the mirror; she stood looking at herself.
Behind her stretched the gray counters—shrouded in for the night’s rest. Only a figure here and there was visible in the distance. Her eyes caught the empty spaces behind her.
“It is late!” she said hastily. “I am keeping you!” She looked over her shoulder at the woman who seemed, in the gray light, receding dimly.
But she came forward with a smile. “There is no hurry.” She touched the coat and adjusted it.
“It suits you perfectly!”
Eleanor More glanced again into the long mirror. The blue and gold covered her from head to foot; and above it, her face looked out at her, a little mistily, and smiled to her.
She shook her head and the mirrored lady shook her head—slowly. Then they both smiled radiantly and the gold dragons crumpled their tails as the coat was flung swiftly back.
“I don’t know why I put it on! I think it bewitched me! Here—take it! Thank you very much.” She spoke—half under her breath, and the woman took the coat in her hands. She stood smoothing the folds.
“It is a great bargain—marked down for to-day.” She touched the tag with casual finger, and Eleanor’s eyes followed the motion.
“I know—It’s absurdly cheap—and very beautiful! But I simply cannot afford it! Thank you for showing it to me—so late!” She moved, a little blindly, toward the stairs. The elevator had ceased to run.
When she was gone the woman stood with the coat in her hand irresolute. A helper coming by with an armful of gray covers cast a flitting glance at it.
“Want a top?”
But she shook her head. “I will put it in the box for to-night.”
The helper went on down the aisle. The woman drew a box from beneath the counter and folded the dragons with careful hand, and smoothed their tails and placed the coat in its box. Through a bit of tissue-paper across the top of the blue and gold it gleamed and shimmered softly, and the woman brushed light finger-tips across it as she pressed the paper down and tucked it in and set the box aside.
Then she went down the room, and disappeared among the shadows of counters and cases, and the shop was left alone. Darkness slipped in from outside, and pushed the grayness before it. It clothed the dummy figure in black, and descended on the box of dragons, blotting it out. It covered the whole room.
In the darkness beneath the counter lay the Chinese coat, with its bit of tissue-paper lying across the glory of blue and gold, safely tucked away.
Only the vast oblongs of windows remained to show faintly, against the street outside, where the light came in.
THAT night she dreamed of the coat. She saw its soft folds descending on her out of the sky, and she held up her hands to it and caught it to her and wrapped it about her and ran in the wind, singing. And all the dragons came alive and pranced beside her—and she threw off the coat and ran with the dragons, unclothed. And the freedom of it was like life—flooding down on her out of the sky; and then the dragons moved from her—they were receding into the distance, their great heads held high; and she ran, stumbling, after them, alone and naked—and suddenly she was in a crowded street and the people were looking at her, and shame drew about her as a vast garment; she shrank back into it, trying to hide—but there was no cover for her—and she woke with a dry, choking sob.
She got carefully out of bed and tiptoed from the room, closing the door behind her. In the next room, she could see the daylight straggling through the curtains. She threw up the shades and watched it come. A flush of light was in the sky over the mean little houses at the rear; even the houses themselves, not yet touched by the light, had a fresh, waiting look; and in the chicken-yards the hens ran about busily, pecking at something, or nothing. In one of the vacant lots a man was hoeing. His bent back had a look of strength. As she watched him, he stopped his work a moment and looked up at the sky. Then he went on hoeing, with slow strokes.
The rooms were filled with light when she came from her bath; and she threw open the windows, and went about getting breakfast with quick steps.
She put the plates on the table and paused and went to the door and opened it. The little porch outside, half-shaded with vines, was streaked with sunshine along the floor. She stepped out on to it, holding out her hand, as if to test the warmth.
She drew a table from the wall and brought a cloth for it and laid the table for breakfast on the porch.
Presently she looked up. A man in the doorway was surveying her with a smile.
She came across to him and lifted her face.
He bent to kiss it. “Up early, weren’t you!”
“I couldn’t sleep—Do you like it—out here?” She waved her hand.
“Fine!” He surveyed the table. “Couldn’t be beat! Shall I bring things out?”
“I was afraid you might not like it.” She poured his coffee. “Father never liked it—eating out-of-doors—at home.”
“Thisis home,” said the man. He was sipping his coffee and looking contentedly at the vine-shadows on the floor.
“My other home, I mean.”
“You never had any other home.”
“Well—what Icalledhome—till I knew better!” She laughed the words at him, and he nodded gravely.
“Father used to wear his hat—some days his muffler—if we tried to eat out-of-doors. So we gave it up. I am glad you like it!”
She fell silent, watching the shadows; and he watched her face. She was quiet a long time.
The man finished his breakfast—he looked at her.
“What are you thinking of?” he asked.
She started. “Oh—I—Nothing very much.” She flashed a little look at him and got up from the table.
“Better tell me,” he suggested.
“It wasn’t anything—not anything that will ever be—anything.” She began to gather up dishes.
“Made you look pretty happy,” he said.
“Did it?” she laughed out. She stood a moment, looking thoughtfully at the vine-shadows on the cloth.... “It was a coat I saw at Stewart’s, yesterday—a perfectly absurd coat—for me!”
“No coat could be absurd for you—not if you wanted it!”
“Yes—I wanted it—I suppose.” She looked again at the white cloth and waited. “I think it bewitched me.... It was a Chinese coat, you see!”
He looked at her blankly. “A Chinese coat—foryou!”
She nodded. “I told you it was absurd!”
“Well—” He regarded it thoughtfully. “If you want it... But what could youdowith—a Chinese coat?”
“That’s what I don’t know.” She was very meek. “I just seemed to think—I wanted it.”
“You couldn’t wear it to church?”
“No-o—” She hesitated. “I could wear it to the opera—if we should go.”
He laughed out. “And to the circus!” He came around and touched her hair where the light fell on it. “How much did it cost—this Chinese thingumabob?”
“Fifty dollars—” It came out slowly—and he whistled softly between his teeth.
“For the opera!” he said.
She threw out her hands. “Of course I didn’t mean it! But you asked me—what I was thinking about——”
“Of course I did!” He was prompt. “And I’ll see what we have—to spare.”
He moved toward the door. “Sure you couldn’t use it for anything else”—he looked back over his shoulder—“except the opera?”
“Well—Icouldmake a kimono of it.” She glanced at him half-pleadingly—then she laughed out. “I don’t want the old thing! I don’t knowwhyI told you!”
If she thought of the coat through the day, there was no sign of it in her face. She went about her work with busy, preoccupied look. She did the dishes, and dusted and made beds and went to market; and after luncheon, which she had by herself on the porch, she lay down, a little while, watching the streaks of light that came through the blind-slats and fell across the matting, and almost reached to the bed... and when she saw them again, they were lying along the pillow close to her—and it was five o’clock.
She sprang up with a little exclamation and hurried to the kitchen.
But, after all, Richard was late, and everything was ready when he came.
He cast a happy look about the room,
“Nice home!” he said.
She smiled and set the dinner on the table.
“You were late.”
“Well, rather! It’s been a great day—” He looked at her thoughtfully across the table, and took up the carving-knife and tested it gently on his thumb. “Martin came in—about the lot, next door!”
She glanced quickly at him. “What did he say?”
“Said he’s ready—to sell.”
They were both silent.
Presently she gave a little sigh. “Well, of course wecan’t—But it’s too bad!”
He looked at her, smiling. “That’s the queer thing! It’s just possible——”
“What do you mean?”
“Well—I’d been looking things over—about your Chinese coat, you know——”
“Oh-h!” Her glance held his.
He nodded. “I’d made up my mind to get it for you—if it took our last
“But I told you—”
He held up a hand. “And I’d just figured out how I could do it—when Martin came in and offered the lot for three hundred—fifty dollars down.”
Her eyes were on his face.
“Of course, yesterday, or day before, I should have said—we couldn’t do it.... But there was the money—in my hand, practically.”
“Did you give it to him?” She leaned forward, a little breathless.
He looked at her. “Do you think I did?”
“Why—I—don’t know.”
He got up and came over to her and bent down. “It isyourChinese coat!” he said. “You didn’t suppose I was going to mortgage your possessions—without letting you know!”
“You mean I canhaveit—the coat!” She had clasped her hands—she was gazing at something far beyond him—far beyond the room, it seemed.
He watched her face a minute. “You sure can have your coat—if you want it!” he said softly.
She drew a long breath and the light ran back into her face, flooding it.
“Oh—!” She threw out her hands. “I don’t want it!—I just wanted to be sure I could want it—if I wanted to!”
“I know.” He looked down at her with quiet understanding.
“So it is the lot?” he said.
“Of course it is the lot! Go and eat your dinner, silly boy!”
They were not likely to forget the night they decided to buy the lot next door. It seemed the beginning of married life together. To be sure, they had been married nearly a year and they had bought and furnished the house; they had even bought a strip of land on the other side of the house that had come into the market soon after they were married—while they still had a little money to spare.
But in all their purchases before, there had been an element that marked them off by themselves. This new purchase was something different—something entered into from choice, and with a free heart.
They called it the Chinese lot.
It was Eleanor who named it and told
Richard laughingly. But even to herself it was not a common, every-day name. It seemed a kind of dream-place, in a faint, happy light, with Chinese dragons chasing across it.
Within twenty-four hours after their decision, the deed for the lot was in Richard’s pocket; and twenty-four hours later the fence between was torn down, and builders were at work on a wall that took in the new lot and made the whole place one.
Eleanor More watched the men with shining eyes. When her work was done she took her sewing-basket and went into the sunshine across the yard, and stepped over the boundary into the new lot. Just beyond the boundary was a great oak-tree, with wide branches and great roots bulging out of the ground. As she sat down under the tree, she noted the roots; the happy thought crossed her mind of children playing there—each great root a playhouse—with little dishes and mud pies.... Her eyes followed the dream, as she unfolded her work and sat sewing, with the light flecking down on her and on the root playhouses and green grass.
Richard More found her there when he came home from work. He went across to see how much had been finished on the wall. Then he came back and stood and watched her swift needle and the light on her hair.
She looked up.
“Nice place!” he said approvingly.
“Yes—I like the roots!” She patted one of them beside her.
He looked at it vaguely.
“Fine!” he said.
She smiled, but she did not explain.
“Why didn’t you ever sit here before?” he demanded, looking about him.
The needle paused. “Why—?... We never owned it before!”
“You didn’t have to own it—to sit on it.”
“Oh, yes I did! Owning it is half the sitting on it!”
He threw himself on the ground beside her and looked up into the oak-tree, throwing back his head.
Her puzzled eyes regarded him.
“I should never think of coming out here to sit—if we didn’t own it—you know that.”
“Hah! Just like a woman!”
She pricked the needle through the muslin in her hand.
“There was the fence,” she said.
“Climb over!” He had taken a pipe from his pocket.
She reached out her hand. “Not before dinner!” decisively. “You’ll spoil your appetite!” She captured the pipe.
“Oh, very well!” He leaned against the tree and watched her.
She was folding her sewing neatly. “I shouldneverhave climbed over!” She pinned the work together in a compact roll and nodded to him.
“You could have gone round—” he said with a teasing note.
“You know what I mean, Dick! I shouldn’t have wanted to sit under a tree that did not belong to us—and that belonged to the Martins or to the Suttons, or to anybody—and not in our own yard—nobody would!”
“Funny idea!” said Dick slowly. “Same tree, same place, just Ours!”
She smiled at him. “Help me up! It’s time for dinner.”
He strolled across the grass beside her to the house, and helped set the table while she was in the kitchen.
He did not smoke his pipe. She had laid it on a high shelf over the mantel as she came in. She had to climb on a chair to reach the mantel. Dick could have reached it with one lift of his hand. But he only eyed it, half-humorously, as he set out doilies and finger-bowls and counted spoons, and called out to the kitchen to know how many forks were needed.
Not for worlds would he have taken down the pipe—not for a single whiff. He had a kind of savage pleasure in it—watching it up there—with its old familiar brown bowl turned to the wall.... Time had been when that pipe was his only friend.... He did not own a house and lot then—and an oak-tree....
He peeped out of the window at the tree, serene in the evening light.... Suddenly he saw a Chinese Coat—blue and gold, she had said it was; and the happiness in his face deepened. He whistled softly between his teeth as he arranged forks and spoons.... “Ourforks and spoons!” he said—and laughed out.
She came to the door. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing—my dear—nothing!” and she returned to the kitchen.
Richard More had not married until he was thirty-five. Eleanor was twenty-six. It had not been easy to win her. She had her tutoring to do.... He took her away from her home town—into his kitchen. But he knew she was happy—far happier than she had been in her little world that looked up to her.... As for himself, he felt as if he moved in a new world—a great world that stretched through leagues—to the moon—or the sun.... The pipe-dreams of old days seemed like hen-coop dreams in the spaces in Eleanor’s mind. Each day he began exploration anew; and each day, in the little circle of her being, he seemed to sweep out into the world—great cosmic paths, and tracks of stars and shining spaces....
She came from the kitchen, smoothing down the sleeves of her gown and casting a last look at the table.
“Too many forks!” she said.
She removed one from each plate, and put it back in its place—neatly in its compartment in the drawer of the shining sideboard.
AMONTH later he hurried home one day from work. It was Saturday noon, and a half-holiday for him.
She was finishing her luncheon. The light in the half-darkened dining-room seemed to him mysterious and cool as he came in from the street outside.
She looked up in surprise. “You are home early!”
He glanced at her plate. “Through luncheon?”
“Almost—Do you want something?”
“No. I’ve had mine—Let’s go off somewhere!”
In ten minutes she was ready and they left the house. He tucked the key in his vest pocket and they hurried across the lawn to catch an outgoing car.
As he passed the oak-tree he glanced at it with a knowing smile. He might almost have been said to wag his head at it. And he patted the pocket where the key lay.... Close beside the key were five round golden disks—little yellow disks that might at any minute turn into great gold dragons.
They left the car at a fork in the road and were in the open country; they climbed a high hill, and a hill behind the high hill, and came out at last upon a bluff overlooking miles of country.
She took off her hat and sat down with a happy sigh, lifting her face to the breeze that came across the hill.
“Isn’t it good!”
He nodded, without speaking. His eyes were on the mountains in the distance. His heart was talking to five gold coins that lay just over it and caused it to beat in a jolly happy rhythm.
He put out a hand and touched hers.
“Something nice has happened today!” he said.
She turned her eyes to him.
“I think this is pretty nice!” Her hand swept all the reach of space about them.
“Guess,” he said teasingly.
“Something we want?”
“Of course. More than anything in the world,” he said after a minute.
She turned her eyes on him gravely. She looked at him a full minute. “How do you know that?” she said softly.
“I know.” He moved nearer to her, and they watched the light change and sweep in great shadows across the fields below. “You want it—more than anything in the world,” he said, speaking slowly. “I knew you did—when I took it for the lot.”
She patted the hand that lay beside her own.
“I did not want it—not soverymuch,” she said. “Anyway, I wanted the lot more.... And, besides, I’ve been so busy getting ready for Annabel——”
“Getting ready for William Archer,” he corrected gravely.
“Getting ready for Annabel—” she pursued, “that I have not had time to think about things—just things for myself.”
“This is not just for yourself—it is for me, too.”
She turned a startled, half-questioning look at him.
He nodded gayly, watching her face. “Did you thinkIdidn’t want that Chinese coat?”
“Oh, did you?” Her face had flushed like a child’s. “I thought I was—just silly about it!”
“So you were. That’s why I wanted it for you.... But, of course, it was sensible to get the lot.”
“Of course!” Her assent was wholehearted and happy.
“So now we’re going to get the coat, too—to-day. I had some money come in”—he patted his pocket—“and there’s enough.”
“It may be gone—!” she said quickly.
“Don’t think so. I sent over word. They’ve got a Chinese coat.”
“Oh, Ihopeit is the same one—!” She breathed a happy sigh.
“We ought to go right away!” She started up.
“Time enough.” He spoke lazily. “I told them to hold it—till five o’clock.” He took out his watch. “Two hours. Plenty of time.”
She sank back. Presently she looked at him.
“I never guessed how much I wanted it! I did not know!"—after a little pause—"I think I did not let myself know.”
Then they talked for a while about Annabel--whose name was William Archer, he pointed out to her....
And they laid plans that ran far ahead into the future—almost till Annabel was an old lady and lonely—only she would have married by that time--and there would be other Annabels.... It seemed to stretch away infinitely.
It was all wonderful—and mysterious. She turned and buried her face in the moss for a long time and was very quiet.
And overhead a great bird passed by. Richard watched the circling flight.
She patted her hair and began to pin on her hat.
He watched her, smiling gravely.
“Now we will go and buy the coat,” he said—“that wonderful Chinese coat—blue and gold, I think you said, my dear—with the great gold dragons on it!”
As they drew near the store he became aware that she was deeply excited; there was a little flush in her face, and she walked with quickened step. He laid his hand on her arm protectingly. But she did not slow her pace.
“Plenty of time,” he said softly in her ear.
She only gave him a sidelong glance and hurried on.
“It may not be the one!” she murmured as they entered the store.
“Then we’ll hunt till we find one like it!” he replied valiantly.
Through the elevator grills she recognized the woman who had waited on her before, and she went swiftly toward her.
“We have come to see the coat,” she said simply.
The woman looked at her, almost in pity, it seemed.
“There’s another party interested in the coat—You mean the Chinese coat, I suppose?”
Eleanor’s face was blank. There was a little catch in her throat.
The woman reached down a hand beneath the counter. “We promised to hold it—” She glanced at the clock, and drew out a box.
“The other party said he was pretty sure to take it.”
Through the tissue-paper a maze of blue and gold showed dimly.
She lifted the paper, throwing it back.
“I guess I’m the other party,” said Richard More. He stooped forward, smiling a little.
“Of course you are!” said Eleanor with a breath of relief. “Of course you are—the ’other party’.”
She turned to the woman. “It was my husband wanted to see it,” she said almost proudly.
The woman consulted a slip of paper. “Name of ’More’.” she asked.
Richard nodded. “Let’s have a look at it.”
The woman lifted the garment from the box and flung it wide on the counter before them; and all the color in it glowed softly and the colors that lay on the counter about it glared and seemed hard.
“Pretty thing!” said Richard More. He pulled his mustache a little nervously.
The woman lifted the coat and shook it out.
“Let madam try it on,” she suggested.
She came from behind the counter and placed it on Eleanor’s shoulders, smoothing the folds.
“It’s not a usual garment—Not every one could wear a garment like that.” She moved back a little, gazing with half-closed eyes.
“It suits madam perfectly!”
The husband surveyed it. “Turn around,” he commanded.
Eleanor turned and moved from him down the cleared space to the mirror. And he was conscious of something remote in her movements. She seemed to withdraw, to hold herself removed, wrapped in the blue and gold folds of the coat.
He moved after her and she turned and faced him.
“It’s all right!” he said approvingly.
He half put out his hand to touch an end of blue sleeve that trailed away to a tasselled cord.... Then he withdrew his hand. “It’s all right!” he repeated vaguely.
The clerk came forward and lifted the tassel and let it fall in place; her fingers sprayed over the garment in an easy, official way.
“How much is it?” asked Richard More.
She consulted the tag hanging on a bit of gold cord in front. She dropped it.
“Ninety-five dollars,” she said indifferently.
She stooped to arrange a fold of the coat.
Eleanor More turned a little. She seemed to gaze down with wide, reproachful eyes at the woman’s bent form.
Her husband’s tone was crisp. “We understood the price was—less than that,” he said.
The woman straightened herself and looked at him. “That was last month—for the sale. It was marked down.”
“And now it’s marked up, is it?” he asked a little cynically.
She assented and touched the coat gently with her fingers, stroking it. “It is a coat Mr. Stewart bought himself,” she said—“in China. He found it when he was buying goods—and liked it. But we’ve had it in stock some time, and he told me to mark it down for the sale. After that, when no one bought it”—she seemed to look at Eleanor almost with reproachful eyes—“then he told me to put back the original price.... It’s more than worth it, of course.”
“Of course,” said Richard absently. He was wondering how much Eleanor really wanted the coat.
She had not spoken from the moment it was laid on her shoulders. She seemed to have withdrawn into it—to have become an inaccessible part of its mystery and charm.
“I had not expected—to pay more than fifty dollars,” said Richard More slowly. “I happen to have that amount with me——-”
The woman waited on the suggestion.... She looked at the two people before her.
“I’ll speak to Mr. Stewart—if he hasn’t gone. It’s not like regular stock. I don’t know whether he would sell it for less——”
She moved away from them down the store and they stood, with all the dummy figures standing around, and waited for her.
Richard More did not speak. He longed to ask his wife whether she wanted it as much as that—as much as ninety-five dollars. But he could not shape the words that would say it. He almost wondered whether she would understand—if he asked her.
She stood with her hands hanging idle and her eyes looking down. She was like a prehistoric creature—an Oriental Madonna of ageless form and beauty.... Almost, he fancied, there were tears in the lidded eyes.... He started and turned brusquely.
The clerk was coming back. He looked at her keenly as she came toward them.
She shook her head. “Ninety-five dollars,” she said. “But you can have a charge, of course.”
His hand moved to his pocket and his eyes were on his wife’s face.
She turned, with a shiver of the long silken lines, and she threw back the coat with a laugh.
“How absurd, Richard I—We can’t pay all that money—for a whim!”
His hand stayed itself from the pocket. “Don’t you want it?” he asked doubt-ingly.
“Of course not!” She shook the coat from her and stepped out.
The woman caught it with a quick gesture as it fell.
His hand waited, fingering the coins in his pocket. “I think we could manage it——”
“Oh—! I don’t want it!” She ignored the woman. She moved swiftly past her and was half-way to the elevator. He sprang after her, with a backward glance of apology at the woman, who stood with the coat on her arm, gazing after them.
In the elevator Eleanor shivered a little, and he squeezed her arm in his in the darkness.
“It’s all right!” he said soothingly, beneath his breath.
She nodded and pressed a little against him.
When they stepped into the light he glanced at her face. It had almost a tragic look.
“Better go back and get it,” he said peremptorily. “Hang the price!”
But she shook her head.
Half-way to the door, he touched her arm. “Let’s get it!” he said coax-ingly.
“I don’t want it!” She turned a gaze on him—half-tragic, half-humorous.... “Do you know why I would not get it?” she demanded.
“I don’t know anything!” he declared, jostling through the crowd to keep pace with her. “I’m incapable of knowing—anything!”
She smiled—a little wistful smile—up at him. “I wouldn’t get it.... Can you hear me?”
“Yes. I can hear you.” He bent his head to her, and they moved as a unit through the crowd. “I can hear you. Go ahead!”
“I thought suddenly”—she gasped a little—“howawfulit would be if Annabel should ever want to have clothes—things to wear—as badly as I wanted that coat—and all those dear little beasts winding around on it!... It wasn’t a coat!” Her lips were close to his ear, a little smile seemed to run from them to him, and he laughed out.
“It wasn’t a coat!” she said fiercely. “It was a blue and gold temptation—with dragons! I wouldn’t have it—at any price!”
“Not for fifty dollars?” he asked—and he bent a keen look at her unconscious face in the crowd.
“Not if they would give it to me!” she said with swift decision. “I want Annabel to be mild in her nature!”
Richard More followed her. Privately he fancied that Annabel would be a person who would know her own mind. If she wanted a blue and gold coat, she would have it, he thought; and if she didn’t want a blue and gold coat, she wouldn’t have it, he thought.... And William Archer—? Well—blue and gold were not exactly colors to be desired in the case of William Archer. In any case Annabel and William Archer must look out for themselves.
He was going back to-morrow, or the first chance he could, and buy that Chinese coat for his wife. He wanted it for her.... As they made their way out of the store, he saw it again, wrapped about her, and he saw the down-bent face with its look of mystery, rising above the shimmering folds.