Esmé excused herself. She might be late. She would come back to the hotel.
She went out into the crisp, stinging cold of early February. Touch of frost on Paris, drift of hot air from shop doors, clear sunlight overhead, people hurrying along the dry pavements. Furs everywhere, outlining piquant French faces; from solid sombre imitation to the sheen of Russian sable and the coarse richness of silver fox.
A fur coat—Esmé wanted one—went restlessly into a shop, tried on, priced, gloried in their soft richness, their linings of mauve and white; saw her fair beauty framed by dark sable, by light-hued mink, by rich fox skin, and knew again disappointment.
The three coats she wanted were splendid things; each one would take almost all her money, leave nothing for frocks and hats.
Impatiently, almost angrily, she stood frowning at the glass.
"Oh! yes, the coat was lovely; but the price! Four hundred pounds of English money; and this other was five!" There was the little coat of mink priced at a mere bagatelle.
"Yes, but Madame must see that it was coarse beside the others."
Cunningly the shopman put the two together; showed the rare sheen of the sable, the cravat of real lace, the exquisite tinting of the blue and silver brocade lining, and laid against it a coat which would have looked rich alone, but here, against this, was a mere outcast.
"Madame sees; the coat is cheap—a bargain. We sold one to-day, almost like it. Ah! here it is!"
"I must take the cheap one," Esmé muttered. "I—"