It seemed to him monstrous that the bill for these few trifling things should have come to three pounds fifteen shillings and elevenpence halfpenny—a sum which, when paid, left him scarcely enough for her boots and the cabs to and from the Zoo. For she chose her foot-gear in the same half-royal, half-mad way, turning over a pile of boots and shoes with quick fingers, and running round to inspect the contents of the show-cases until she discovered a pair of tiny, thin walking-shoes with slender, tapering heels, which stood all by themselves under glass in the middle of the shop. She was told they were only for show, and too small for wear.
“But they are large enough for me,” she said, thrusting forward a small, velvet-shod foot imperiously. “I will not wear ugly shoes because your Englishwomen have ugly feet.”
And nothing would satisfy her but to try them on, when, to the surprise of the shopkeeper and the consternation of the unhappy purse-bearer, they proved to fit her perfectly and in every respect to suit her taste. She performed a little fancy dance before the glass to demonstrate their beauty and the fact that they were easy, and George brought down his fortune to a couple of half-crowns and some coppers by the act of paying for them.
“Weren’t there any boots then among the things I brought from Mary Street this morning, Nouna?” he asked diffidently.
“Oh yes, a few old ploughmen’s things—‘strong walking-boots,’ as Mrs. Ellis calls them,” said she carelessly; “but of course I could not come out with you in those. You know Mrs. Ellis never will take me with her to buy my things. This is the very first time I have ever bought anything for myself, and oh! I do like it.”
George had no doubt of that: she was absolutely trembling with joyous excitement. But Mrs. Ellis’s judgment seemed to him a less mean thing than it had seemed before. The girl was so happy, however, that it was impossible not to sympathise a little with her pleasure; and when they left the shop and got again into the hansom, and she said, with an ardent squeeze of his hand, “Oh, I do like shopping with you! I’ll go shopping with you whenever you like!” he felt a passionate longing to gather the little butterfly thing up into his arms; and instead of telling her that about a week of this indulgence would land him in the Bankruptcy Court, he told her in a husky whisper that he would have some work in a few days, and when the money for it came she should have it to do what she liked with, “and every penny I can ever earn in all my life, my darling,” he added close to her ear. Whereupon she was with difficulty restrained from embracing him opposite Peter Robinson’s.
This was the day they went to the Zoo, where Nouna, looking quaintly lovely in her hastily-chosen toilette, skipped and frolicked about so that George felt like her grandfather, fed the big bear with buns until even he refused to climb up his pole for them any longer, and excited a mild “sensation” in the school-children and quiet visitors. Not one cage, not one path among the Gardens, would she leave unvisited. George might go home if he pleased—she could find her way back; but she would drink her pleasure to the dregs, ride the elephant and the camels, lunch frugally and hastily at the little restaurant, give nuts to the monkeys and biscuits to the Wapiti deer, pat the seals and shudder at the serpents, till the sun went down and it was time for the closing of the Gardens. By that time the new shoes had begun to feel a little stiff, the white gloves to look more than a little soiled, and at last poor tired Nouna burst into tears on discovering a long rent in the pretty crape shawl.
“It was that nasty monkey, the one with the long ta-a-il,” she sobbed. “Oh, George, isn’t there time to go back and beat him?”
“No, I’m afraid not, darling,” said George, rearranging the shawl as best he could to hide the slit. “And he didn’t know any better, poor thing.”
“But I ought to know better than to be such a baby,” said she suddenly, with great solemnity, stopping her tears. “I shall be different when I’m married,” she went on, very earnestly, “for married women never cry, do they? They have something else to do. I’m afraid I shall not make a very good wife at first, George,” she said, giving herself up to the subject with as much intensity as she had just devoted to the animals, though her voice was tired now and her footsteps very slow. “I was talking it over with Miss Glass this morning, and she told me many things which I meant to write down, only I forgot: how I must find out what you like and what you dislike; she says many a husband’s love is lost by little things such as forgetting pickles, and giving him hare without—without—I don’t remember what. But I’ll ask her again. I mean to be a good wife, much better than people think, and please mamma—and—let me rest a little.”