Deane produced his cheque-book—fortunately, he was well known—and wrote a cheque for over two thousand pounds in exchange for the receipt which the man handed to him. Winifred calmly withdrew her glove and slipped on the ring. The other things she asked them to send. When she left the shop, it seemed to Deane that there was a little more color in her cheeks and a deeper light in her eyes.
"Jewelry interests you?" he remarked, as they stood for a moment on the pavement.
"Yes!" she answered. "Of course it does. Everything of this sort interests me. Haven't I longed all my days to feel the touch of pearls upon my bare neck, to have something like this upon my finger that I could look at and worship, not only for itself but for the things it represents? Come and buy me some flowers. My sitting-room is a wilderness. Afterwards, I am going into the milliner's beyond."
Deane followed her obediently into the florist's opposite. She chose a great bowl of pink roses and some white lilac.
"How many of the roses, madam?" the shopman asked her.
She looked at him with faintly upraised eyebrows. "Oh! send them as they are," she answered carelessly.
"There are four dozen, madam," the man remarked, bowing.
She nodded indifferently. The fact that they were a shilling each did not appear to interest her.
"Is that all the lilacs you have?" she asked, as they were leaving the shop.
"All we have at present, madam," the man answered.