He performed his part of the enterprise with an almost childlike delight. Ladies’ dressing-bags cost more than he had imagined, but the shopman said he would take a cheque. David found something to his mind—a dainty yet capacious trifle, with pretty silver flasks ranged on one side, and a surprisingly comprehensive collection of small implements—scissors, curling-tongs, a manicure set, and other tools the significance of which he could not even guess—packed about in quaint little pockets and crevices. The outer leather was rich to the eye and delicate to the touch.
A few doors away shone the symbolical red and blue lights of a chemist. Hurrying thither, he flung himself eagerly into the task of buying fluids to fill those imposing flasks. The shopman advised him, at first coldly, then with rising enthusiasm. The best perfumes and vinaigres were expensive, certainly, but then they were the best, and would vouch for themselves to any cultivated feminine mind. There were recondite soaps, and cosmetics to thrill any gentle heart. And in the matter of brushes—here were some silver-backed, and the comb also—to match the flasks. So the list was filled out, and David wrote another cheque with a proud smile.
Vestalia stood at the door of the shop, waiting with a small paper parcel in her hands. Mosscrop was disappointed at its size, and thrust it into the bag with a disdainful shove. They strolled on up the street, and he looked into every lighted window with a hopeful eye. The display of mere masculine or neutral wares affronted him. The shopping fantasy possessed his soul.
“But you really ought to have them. You’re not behaving nicely to me in continually saying ‘no,’” he urged more than once, as the pressure of his companion’s arm drew him away from the tempting windows. She did consent at last to the purchase of some slippers—and he saw to it that they were the choicest that the shelves afforded—soft, luxurious little things, with satin linings and buckles of mother-of-pearl. When these went into the bag, it was filled. He recognised the fact with a regretful sigh.
The creaking old clock-machinery in the belfry of St. Clement Danes set itself in motion as they passed, and the ancient chimes clanged out the full hour. It was nine o’clock.
“I had some thought of a music-hall,” he remarked. “But we’ve had a pretty full day—and a long day, too. I know you must be tired.”
“Perhaps—just a little,” she answered, softly.
“Then we’ll go home,” he said, with decision.
It was not a part of London which Vestalia knew very well. Mosscrop led her along the Strand for a little way, then crossed and went up a side street, then turned into a still narrower by-way. The ragged loungers on the walk had an evil aspect, and almost every building seemed to be a public-house. At the last corner a piano-organ of unusual volume shook the air with deafening mechanical din. The man turned the crank so fast, and the dancing children in the radiance from the open-doored tavern on the pavement raised such a racket of their own, that she could barely distinguish the movement of the vulgar tune. On the borders of darkness beyond were discernible still other children, playing noisily about at the base of groups of fat women in fog-coloured shawls and white aprons. Over all the tumult and squalid clusterings of humanity there brooded the acrid, musty stench of an antique mid-London slum.
The two turned under an archway, and as by magic the atmosphere freshened and the hubbub ceased. A small square of venerable buildings disclosed itself vaguely in the uncertain light from the sky. Here and there a lamp behind some curtained window made a dim break in the obscurity. The faint sweet moaning of a ’cello rose from somewhere at the farther end of the space. A stout man with a gold band upon his tall hat revealed himself for a noiseless moment, lifted his finger in salute to Mosscrop, and melted away again into the shadows. Whether they had passed him, or he them, Vestalia could hardly tell. It was all very strange—and a little sombre. A streak of moonlight glanced down between shifting clouds, and fell across the fronts of the houses opposite. There were pale grey tablets of ornamentation set into their mass of dusky brickwork, which looked like tombstones. The girl trembled, and hung back upon Mosscrop’s arm as if to halt.