It was one o’clock before the young policeman felt at liberty to resume his beat, and Sam left the enchanted river for his little hotel in Norfolk Street. Ada had her back to him and apparently she slept. Actually she was wide awake; she was wondering whether it had happened to any other woman to be treated so abominably on her honeymoon.
She brushed her hair nest morning with a notable viciousness. Hair has uses beyond those of mere adornment. It is an admirable veil through which one can watch without being seen to watch. Ada was watching Sam and she was also listening to him.
She listened not because his enthusiasm for the House of Commons interested her, but because she was waiting for some word of apology. It did not come. He was full of regret, but only because this was their last day in town and he could not go to the House again.
“What time is our train?” she asked.
He told her.
“Then I have time to do some shopping first.”
“Shopping?” he asked, but unsuspiciously.
She nodded. Sam was going to pay for his pleasures. Those blouses she had seen at Peter Robinson’s no longer seemed impossibly expensive. If Sam chose to enjoy himself in his own way, without her, she would enjoy herself in hers—with Sam to pay the piper.
Shopping is a loose term; one shops when one buys a kipper or a diamond tiara. Ada was putting her hair up and he imagined her to mean that she wanted a packet of hair-pins. “Oh, yes,” he said pensively. “And while you go, I think I will just slip down to the House of Parliament again.” The House would not be sitting and he could not get in. He knew that, but he wanted to gaze, to look at the frame which was some day to contain him. He wanted to be certain that it was still there.
“I think,” she said, “that you will come with me to the shop. I shall want you there to pay.”