But as they turned into the Avenue he came out of his abstraction to say, “Watch out for fur coats now, will you, and shout the first window you see.”
“There’s one there, across the street, a whole window of fur coats,” Ariel told him.
He parked as soon as he could find a place. And when he came around the car to open the door on Ariel’s side he stood a moment, aware of her again as he had been in the customs shed. He said, “It’s going to be fun picking out this coat for a welcoming present.” He smiled to himself, for he had resisted the pun “a warm welcome.” He had noticed that she did not like that sort of fun when he had tried to be humorous before, and went on seriously, “It will be very sweet of you, Ariel, if you let me please myself about this.”
Ariel knew in that instant how utterly he was changed. That first sight of him from the deck had been strangely deceiving. She was sorry for him, without knowing why. Of course he should please himself about buying a fur coat for her. She wanted him to be pleased and happy, as he had been all those days in Bermuda.
Inside the shop door Hugh paused and stood looking about, while salesmen and salesgirls hovered, watching him with eager curiosity. Then, when he had come to his decision, he swooped, a clean swoop, seizing on the proprietor of the shop—how he guessed he was the proprietor and would so save time and words for them, Ariel did not know—and pointed out a soft white coat, hanging at the end of a near rack.
“Good afternoon,” he said, with a quick nod. “Will you please try this on the lady? Thank you.”
In an instant Ariel was turning herself about at the center of a fan of long mirrors, in the beautiful coat. Its collar rolled away softly at her neck, its girlishness offsetting the luxuriousness. The garment was cut straight from shoulder to hem, and its cuffs, narrow and young, like the collar, rolled softly back at the wrists. It was flexible and light. It was like being wrapped in swansdown, not fur. Then Hugh stood behind her and folded it back for her to take in the scarlet silk lining.
“Do you like it?” he asked, meeting her eyes in the mirror. It was plain, in the mirror, that already the new coat was giving him pleasure, just as he had promised her it would.
“Of course I like it! I love it,” she cried, poising on her toes, almost as tall as Hugh now, smiling at his reflected eyes, feeling as if the coat were wings folded down her body from her shoulders,—soft, lovely wings, making her tall, light, swift. But then suddenly she forgot the coat, forgot her pleasure and Hugh’s pleasure. She turned on Hugh Weyman and threw her head back, meeting his eyes squarely. “But I’d much rather have had the violets. Much, much rather!” she exclaimed.
He could not think what she meant at first. Then he remembered. Joan Nevin had held out her hands for the violets, and he had tossed them up to her. But they were really Ariel’s violets. He had taken them to the boat for her. They were to have been his welcoming present. He slowly flushed.