“Fay, dear, don’t.” Claudia glanced at the sulky Vera, who was packing up the hats. Apparently Fay had never heard of the undesirability of washing dirty linen in public.
“You’re a lady. A blind man could see that. If you hadn’t been so sweet I’d have hated you directly I saw you. I knew what you were at once. Of course, Jack is a perfect gentleman, but that’s different somehow, except”—vaguely—“I liked him a bit extra for it. He looks different in his clothes to the other men, and yet those men spend a lot of money too. I knew a man once, he owned a couple of halls in the Midlands, and he told me he had fifty-two waistcoats, one for every week of the year. I don’t suppose Jack’s got as many as that?”
She was adjusting a saucy matinée cap, a dainty affair of pink ribbon and lace.
“I am sure he hasn’t.”
“Won’t you take no hat at all?” said the annoyed shop-girl, breaking in rudely. “You might take this one with the pink roses. I’m sure that’s quite enough.”
“No, no, I’ll wait till I can come to the shop. Here, my dear, here’s a half a crown for your trouble. I’ll come in—soon.” She looked quickly from the shop-girl to Claudia, a desperate question in her blue eyes.
“That’s a much better arrangement,” returned Claudia cheerfully. “We’ll go together, shall we?”
“Yes, yes,” cried Fay eagerly, clapping her hands. “But, I say,” as the door closed behind the girl and her hat-boxes, “will you take me to your hat shop where that came from?”
“With pleasure.”
“What; come here.” Fay beckoned her imperiously to her side. “Do you mean you are not ashamed of me? I could keep my mouth dead shut, you know. Do you mean that you’d let me wear the same sort of hats as you, that you’ll try and make a lady of me?”