“No—please!” she urged. “I think we won’t, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course we will!” he insisted, turning in the doorway. “Why on earth shouldn’t we? It’s your birthday, you know. Come, child, you mustn’t be obstinate; you must be nice, and do what you’re told.”
As she still hung back, shaking her head, he went out to her. “What’s the matter? You liked the idea well enough a minute ago. I saw you smiling in the window there. Come! don’t let a mere trifle like this spoil the beginning of our great joint-birthday. It’s too bad of you! Won’t you really have the boots—from me?”
“Well,” she made answer, falteringly, “it’s very kind—but if I do, I’d rather you didn’t come into the shop—that is, that you went out while I was trying them on—because—well, it is my birthday, you know, and I must have my own way—a little. You will stop outside, won’t you?”
This struck him as perhaps an excess of maidenly reserve. He smiled impatiently. “By all means, if it is your whim. But—but I’m bound to say—I suppose different people draw the line at different places, but feet always seemed to me to be relatively blameless things, as things go. Still, of course, if it’s your idea.”
“No, if you take it that way,” she said, “we’ll go and get our breakfast, and say no more about it.” She found the fortitude to turn away from the window as she spoke.
“If I take it that way!” The perverseness of this trivial tangle annoyed him. “Why, I consented to stop outside, didn’t I? What more is demanded? Do you want me to pass a vote of confidence, or shall I whistle during the performance, so that you may know I am cheerful, or what? Suppose I told you that I had been a salesman in a boot-shop myself, and had measured literally thousands of pretty little feet—would that reassure you? I might come in, then, mightn’t I?”
“No—you never were that—you are a gentleman.” She stole a perplexed glance up at him, and sighed. “I should dearly love the boots—but you won’t understand. I don’t know how to make you.” Looking into his face, and catching there a reflection of her own dubiety, she burst suddenly into laughter. “You are a gentleman, but you are a goose, too. My stockings are too mournful a patchwork of holes and darning to invite inspection—if you will have it.”
“Poor child!” He breathed relief, as if a profoundly menacing misunderstanding had been cleared up. “Here, take this and run across to that fat Jewess in the doorway there. She will fit you out.”
Presently she returned, with beaming eyes, and an air of shyness linked with complacent self-approbation which he found delightful.