'Shall we send it, miss?'
'Madam,' said Lily proudly. 'No, I'll take it.'
'Yes, madam.'
At the cash desk (No. 56) she had to wait her turn in a disorderly queue before she could tender the bill and her five-pound note. Customers pressed round her on all sides as she put down the note and peered through the wire network into the interior of the desk.
'Next, please,' said the cashier sharply, after a moment.
'My change,' demanded Lily.
'You have had it, madam.'
'Oh,' said Lily, 'I have had it, have I? Now, none of your nonsense, young man! Do you know who I am? I'm Mrs. Albert Shawn.'
'Mr. Randall,' the cashier called out coldly, and a grave and gigantic shopwalker appeared who knew not the name of Albert Shawn, and who firmly told Mrs. Shawn that if she wished to make a complaint she must make it at the Central Inquiry Office, ground-floor, Department 1A.
Lily had been brazenly robbed at Hugo's by an employé of Hugo! She was elbowed away by other women apparently anxious to be robbed. She wanted to cry, but suddenly remembering her identity, and her pass to the presence of Hugo, she threw up her head and marched off through the crowds.