"Well, but my dear lady," he said—and talked to her persuasively of paying for the service and the hansom that was outside.
"Alors!" said Madame Hermiance.
Expectancy bubbled in him anew. He would scrawl a line explaining what he had suffered, beseeching Rosalind to meet him still! Would Madame have the kindness to provide him with an envelope?
It was provided.
And a sheet of note-paper? he was abased by the trouble he was causing her.
Alas! her note-paper was not in the shop, but she could offer him a price-list—it was very long, and the back was blank.
This was no moment to finick; the case was urgent. He put his foot on a laundry basket, and the price-list on his knee; and at the back of "Blouses," "Bodices" and "White petticoats from 6d," he pencilled his appeal.
When "Ameliarran" had cast off her apron, he promised her a sovereign to buy feathers. She was given the post-card bearing the address, and he let her depart without a question. It was evident now that Rosalind had withheld her address very deliberately; to ascertain where she lived wouldn't be playing the game! But would the appeal find her at home? She might be shopping, visiting, taking an aimless, fatal walk! Hope tottered in him again. The girls who remained eyed him sympathetically; he was conscious that they placed no credence in his narrative of the impresario, and he withdrew to wait where he would be less interesting.
The street was not picturesque; for the scene of a lover's impatience it might be called "preposterous." The narrow pavements were so busy that he was forced to choose the narrow road; and the road was made narrower by stalls of vegetables and tin pots. "Ameliarran," he had heard, might accomplish her mission in half an hour. He escaped from the marketing, and lit a cigar in a grey thoroughfare of comparative seclusion.
"Would she be at home?" When he turned back he braced himself to meet the crisis. He had consulted his watch frequently, but he had not returned before "Ameliarran" might be expected. Nevertheless he was too soon. He withdrew again, and fumed once more among the cabbages and pans.