She grew more bewildered. Wasn't he “getting it back?” The money he had been spending that day!
“Young Lady,” he said abruptly, “you must think I'm a queer one.”
She murmured feeble protest.
“Yes, you must. Must wonder what I want with all this stuff, don't you?”
“Why, it's for your wife, isn't it?” she asked, startled.
“Oh yes, but you must wonder. You're a shrewd one, Young Lady; judging the thing by me, you must wonder.”
Virginia was glad she was not compelled to state her theory. Loud and common and impossible were terms which had presented themselves, terms which she had fought with kind and good-natured and generous. Their purchases she had decided were to be used, not for a knock, but as a crashing pound at the door of the society of his town. For her part, Virginia hoped the door would come down.
“And if you knew that probably this stuff would never be worn at all, that ten to one it would never do anything more than lie round on chairs—then you would think I was queer, wouldn't you?”
She was forced to admit that that would seem rather strange.
“Young Lady, I believe I'll tell you about it. Never do talk about it to hardly anybody, but I feel as if you and I were pretty well acquainted—we've been through so much together.”