The Chinese Coat

CONTENTS


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.