"I'm very sorry you've been ill," she said, in her pretty modulated voice. "As you probably feel that you got your illness in the Works, I should like you to take this. Please consider it as coming from my father--and buy yourself something--"
All the blood in the little creature's body seemed to rush headlong to her face. She shrank away as from something more painful than a blow. But all that she said was:
"Oh!... Ma'am!"
It was Miss Heth's turn to show a red flag in her cheek.
"You don't want it?"
"I--why ma'am,--I couldn't ..."
"As you like, of course."
She dropped the spurned gift back into her bag, with studied leisureliness, and rose at once, though she had made no purchase. Standing, she made a slight inclination of her prettily-set head. And then Miss Heth was walking away through the crowded aisle with a somewhat proud bearing and a very silken swish.
And Kern Garland swung round on her seat at Gentlemen's Furnishings, staring wide-eyed after her, her finger at her lip ...
No fairy coming-true here, indeed, of that gorgeous fever-dream in which Miss Heth with lovely courtesy informed Miss Garland that she had been a lady all the time. But consider the Dream-Maker's difficulties with such far-flown fancies as this: difficulties the more perplexing in a world where men's opinions differ, and some do say that she in the finest skirt is not always the finest lady ...