Eleanor More glanced at the coat again—down through the gray-shrouded counters. Then she turned swiftly and went back. It stood by itself on its dummy figure at the end of the glass cases; in the fading light from a window above, the fantastic gold shadows of the dragons chased each other and played hazily across it.
She halted before it, and half reached out her hand to it.
A woman with a large bust and paper cuffs on her sleeves came drifting toward her. “Anything I can show you, madam?”
Eleanor More looked up. “I was looking at this coat.” Her hand moved vaguely to the dragons.
The woman’s eyes followed the gesture. “It’s a great bargain!” She put out her hand to it.
“Would you like to slip it on?”
Eleanor More drew back. “Oh—I wasn’t thinking of buying. I was looking. I just happened—to see it——”
The woman’s hands were busy with the neck of the coat. She slipped it deftly from the lay figure and held it up. “No harm in trying,” she said.
Eleanor More looked at it and drew away—and came back. She held out her hands with a little laughing gesture.
“No—I cannot afford—” She put her hands into the blue sleeves with the quaint trailing ends and drew it up about her.