THE LITTLE GREEN HAT.
They were coming out of the matinee, and there was something in the way he took her arm and swung her out of the crush, that the experienced eye of the married man or married woman could at once detect as the assurance of the husband, accustomed to being adored, and quietly and covertly conscious of other feminine eyes in the crowd.
He turned up her fur collar and they walked along in silence. She was scrutinizing each face in the slowly moving throng. He was picking his way, falling in her wake to give room to the opposing stream, and occasionally to glance behind and strengthen some impression of a silhouette, that awoke a momentary pang, and then faded into the blur of faces, the rustle of silks and the subtle perfume of a well dressed crowd of women.
Once he turned half round sharply, as a tall, handsome woman swept by, creaking and rustling like a great galleon in a swell of wind and rolling sea. His wife brought back his eyes with a glance of interrogation.
“Pretty little green hat, that,” he said. “I think it would just suit you.”
“Ah yes,” answered she. “Strange you never notice hats in the milliners’ windows.”
Jonathan Penn.