he let
his impulse cool he would not act at all. The bold course was the wise
one; this was why he chose the end door round the corner. Standing
aside for her to go in first, he noticed the girl's brightened eyes and
cheeks; she had never looked so pretty. He glanced hastily round; the
department was barren for their purposes, filled entirely with pyjamas.
He felt a touch on his arm. The little model, rather pink, was looking
up at him.

"Mr. Dallison, am I to get more than one set of--underthings?"

"Three-three," muttered Hilary; and suddenly he saw that they were on
the threshold of that sanctuary. "Buy them," he said, "and bring me the
bill."

He waited close beside a man with a pink face, a moustache, and an
almost perfect figure, who was standing very still, dressed from head to
foot in blue-and-white stripes. He seemed the apotheosis of what a man
should be, his face composed in a deathless simper: "Long, long have
been the struggles of man, but civilization has produced me at last.
Further than this it cannot go. Nothing shall make me continue my line.
In me the end is reached. See my back: 'The Amateur. This perfect style,
8s. 11d. Great reduction.'"

He would not talk to Hilary, and the latter was compelled to watch the
shopmen. It was but half an hour to closing time; the youths were moving
languidly, bickering a little, in the absence of their customers--like
flies on a pane unable to get out into the sun. Two of them came and
asked him what they might serve him with; they were so refined and
pleasant that Hilary was on the point of buying what he did not want.
The reappearance of the little model saved him.

"It's thirty shillings; five and eleven was the cheapest, and stockings,
and I bought some sta---"

Hilary produced the money hastily.

"This is a very dear shop," she said.

When she had paid the bill, and Hilary had taken from her a large
brown-paper parcel, they journeyed on together. He had armoured his face
now in a slightly startled quizzicality, as though, himself detached, he
were watching the adventure from a distance.

On the central velvet seat of the boot and shoe department, a lady, with
an egret in her hat, was stretching out a slim silk-stockinged foot,
waiting for a boot. She looked with negligent amusement at this common
little girl and her singular companion. This look of hers seemed to
affect the women serving, for none came near the little model. Hilary
saw them eyeing h