The detested title brought me to myself.
“We are here,” I said, shortly. “And now where shall we go? Have you any stopping place in particular?”
She nodded.
“Yes,” she said, “I want to stop now. Please pull up over there, in front of that shop with the cricket bats in the window.”
The shop was what we, in America, would have called a “sporting-goods store.” I piloted “Pet” to the curb and pulled up.
“I am going in,” said Miss Morley. “Oh, don't trouble to help me. I can get down quite well.”
She was down, springing from the step as lightly as a dandelion fluff before I could scramble down on the other side.
“I won't be long,” she said, and went into the shop. I, not being invited, remained on the pavement. Two or three small boys appeared from somewhere and, scenting possible pennies, volunteered to hold the horse. I declined their services.
Five minutes passed, then ten. My passenger was still in the shop. I could not imagine what she was doing there. If it had been a shop of a different kind, and in view of Hephzy's recent statement concerning the buying of clothes, I might have been suspicious. But no clothes were on sale at that shop and, besides, it never occurred to me that she would buy anything of importance without mentioning her intention to me beforehand. I had taken it for granted that she would mention the subject and, when she did, I intended to be firm. But as the minutes went by my suspicions grew. She must be buying something—or contemplating buying, at least. But she had said nothing to me concerning money; HAD she money of her own after all? It might be possible that she had a very little, and was making some trifling purchase.
She reappeared in the doorway of the shop, followed by a very polite young man with a blonde mustache. The young man was bowing and smiling.