Five minutes later Mrs. Baines was walking along Portman Square, feeling like a woman in a dream, or a millionaire carrying his entire capital. She bought some flowers, on her way back, to put on the little dinner table in Portsea Place, and two little red candle-shades, for with characteristic quickness she had noticed the old-fashioned plated candlesticks on the mantelpiece, and remembered that gas above the table was unbecoming; and then she bought a yard or two of lace to wear round her throat, feeling a little ashamed and yet happy while she did so. She thought of her lover, and looked longingly round the shop; but there was nothing that even she could imagine would be an acceptable present to a man.
“Welcome, my darling,” she said to him, when he arrived an hour or two later; “this is the first time I have had the happiness of receiving you in a place of my own. I trust our repast will be ready punctually.”
“How is Sir William Rammage?” he asked.
“In a most precarious condition.”
“No better?”
“From what I could gather, Alfred, he must be worse,” and she spoke solemnly.
“Whom did you see?”
“I saw a solicitor, Mr. Boughton.”
“That is my uncle; and he said he was worse?”
“He was so ill, Alfred, that Mr. Boughton even paid me my quarter’s income out of his own pocket.” A little smile hovered on Mr. Wimple’s face.