“Thank you,” said Audrey coolly, as she took from the hands of the attendant maiden a sweet thing in white felt and ostrich feathers, with engaging bunches of violets tucked in here and there about the brim: “Would this suit Lady Joyce, do you think?”
“I—I—I’m afraid it’s a little—little young-looking,” murmured Sir Barnaby, by no means pleased to find himself thus ruthlessly recalled from chivalrous sentiment to matters of sordid business.
And the “young ladies” around, who all knew that Lady Joyce, though her husband’s contemporary, had allowed herself to age at a faster rate than he, exchanged stealthy looks, and wondered at Madame’s want of tact.
“I think something in velvet with a tuft of feathers at the side and something stringy about the neck is what Lady Joyce generally wears,” said Sir Barnaby at last, desperately, when picture-hats and dreams in ermine and ostrich feathers had been paraded before him in somewhat bewildering succession, and tried on the head of one of the pretty attendants with great gravity.
“Perhaps you had better bring Lady Joyce here to try on some bonnets and choose for herself,” suggested Audrey gently.
At which there was a further exchange of demure looks, unseen, among the assistants. Sir Barnaby answered rather stiffly:—
“Lady Joyce is content to follow my taste. I’ll take that one.”
And he pounced upon an ermine toque with an osprey at the side, and pulled out a five-pound note to pay for it.
“How much is it?” asked Audrey of the assistant who held the toque in her hand.
There was a smile on the face of the girl as she answered that it was four guineas. And Audrey felt that she had betrayed unseemly ignorance as she blushed and carefully counted out her customer’s change.