The moment seemed to have come. With the scarf thrown jauntily over her arm where anyone could see it, the mother forced her way amid the crowds in search of her little boy. If intercepted she had her explanation. He had gone on an errand, and had not come back. When she had found him she would return and pay for the scarf, or decide not to take it. Her story couldn't help being plausible.
"Aunt Mary" was a spot agreed upon near one of the side doors, and far from the center of interest in silk scarves. Agreed upon was also a little bit of comedy, for the benefit of possible lookers-on.
"Oh, my dear, I've kept you waiting so long. I'm so sorry. Tell your mother this is the best I could do for her. I knew you were waiting, so I didn't let the lady wrap it up. Open your bag, and I'll put it in."
The bag closed, the little boy went out through one door, and his mother through another. The point where she was to rejoin him was not so far away but that he could walk to it alone.
VI
It's all right, mudda, isn't it?"
He asked this after their campaign had been carried on for a good part of a year, and when they were nearing Christmas. He was now supposed to be seven. For reasons he could not explain the great game lost its zest. In as far as he understood himself he hated the sneaking and the secrecy. He hated the lying too, but lying was so much a part of their everyday life that he might as well have hated bread.
"Of course it's all right," his mother snapped. "Haven't I said so time and again? We get away with it, don't we? And if it wasn't all right we shouldn't be able to do that."