"If you only knew her!" she said. "But you don't."
He could not help wondering which of them knew the more about one great incident in her life, but he merely echoed her words with a rueful conviction of his own: "No, I don't."
She regarded him with sympathetic understanding. Of course he was infatuated with Felicity, like many others, and undoubtedly his chances were as remote as theirs.
"Now tell me," she said, "what you are going to get for the rest of your family."
"That's what I want you to tell me," he answered.
"Follow me, then," she said brightly, "and I 'll see that you don't get imposed upon."
He took the book and her bundles, and they left the counter on the best of terms. Though he was hopelessly in love with another, a knowledge of Mrs. Parr's partiality for him lent a certain charm to his manner. Without attaching any weight to the fancy Miss Wycliffe had told him of, he was sufficiently human to enjoy being liked and to make some response. At his first meeting with Mrs. Parr she had seemed merely insignificant; at Littleford's he had found her irritating; now, to his astonishment, he discovered in her worship of Felicity her attractive side. When they finally left the shop with their accumulated purchases, she insisted that he follow her into the sleigh and go to her home for a cup of tea.
"People are so inconsiderate during the Christmas season," she chattered. "Now I never have my things sent home at this time of year, when the delivery men are so overworked; and I don't even bother the boys to carry them out to the sleigh for me, unless I positively have to. John and I do our shopping together, don't we, John?"
The coachman touched his hat with his whip in acknowledgement of the copartnership in humanitarianism, and deftly steered his horses into the open street. "I belong to a league of women," she went on, "who have agreed not to go shopping in the late afternoons, and not to have the things they can carry sent by the delivery waggons. I don't know how many printed slips I have sent out requesting shoppers to use the same consideration. We looked up nearly every name in the directory. This is the third year we 've done it."
"That's why I did n't receive a copy of your communication," he remarked. "My name 's not in the directory yet."