"Bermuda or Niagara Falls?" asked the young woman.
"I beg your pardon?" I inquired, conscious that my face was insufferably hot.
"If you are taking madame to Bermuda she will naturally require cooler clothing than if you are taking her to Niagara Falls," the young woman explained, looking at me with benevolent patience. And seeing that I was wholly disconcerted she added:
"Perhaps madame might prefer to make her own selection."
As I stood in the centre of the store, apparently a stumbling block to every shopper, Jacqueline flitted here and there, until a comfortable assortment of parcels was accumulated upon the counter.
"Where shall I send them, madame?" inquired the saleswoman.
There was a suit-case to be bought, so I had them transferred to the trunk and leather-goods department, where I bought a neat sole-leather suit-case which, at Jacqueline's practical suggestion, was changed for a lighter one of plaited straw.
After that I abstained from misdirecting my companion's activities.
And everybody addressed her as madame, and everybody smiled on us, and sometimes I reflected miserably upon the wedding ring, and then again smiled too and forgot, watching Jacqueline's eager face flushed with delight as she looked at the pretty things in the store.
I had meditated taking her into Tiffany's to buy her a trinket of some kind. A ring seemed forbidden, and I was weighing the choice between a bracelet and a watch, my desire to acquire a whole counter of trinkets rapidly getting the better of my judgment, when something happened which put the idea completely out of my head.