When they came out of her shop, Tinker considered for a while the hole he had made in the thousand-franc note, and said, "The time has come to be economical."
He examined the shops with a keen eye till he came to one which seemed more of the popular kind, and there he bought a frock of serge and three of dark-blue linen, stouter shoes, slippers, and two hats. Here he waited while Elsie changed, and when she came out, looking another creature, he said with a sigh of relief, "I knew you'd look all right if you had a chance."
They had ices at a café, and caught a train back to Monte Carlo. Elsie seemed dazed with her sudden wealth, while Tinker was full of a quiet, restful satisfaction. But it was in the evening that the great triumph came. When she came out of her room in her evening frock, Tinker regarded her for a moment with a satisfaction that was almost solemn, then he turned her round and said, "We match."
"Do you really think so?" said Elsie in an awed voice, with humid eyes.
"There's no doubt about it," said Tinker, with calm, dispassionate, and judicial impartiality.
When they came into the restaurant there was a faint murmur of delighted surprise from the tables they passed; and one stout, but sentimental baroness cried, "Violà des séraphin!"
And truly, if you can conceive of a seraph in an Eton suit, a low-cut white waistcoat, and a white tie, there was something in what she said.
At the sight of them Sir Tancred smiled, and Lord Crosland said, "I congratulate you on your taste, young people."
"It was Tinker's," said Elsie; and she looked at him with a world of thankfulness and devotion in her eyes.
After dinner Tinker was uncomfortable. He felt bound to break to Elsie her uncle's desertion, and he was afraid of tears. With a vague notion of emphasising the difference between her uncle's régime and his own, he led the way to the corner of the gardens where they had first met and, standing before the seat on which she had waited so long and hungrily, he said, "I say, don't you think we could do without your uncle?"