"She was quite right," I said very decidedly. "Did you get the what-you-may-call-it—the other thing?"
Nancy's face expressed poignant anguish.
"Twelve guineas," she said. "I simply couldn't run to it. Of course I was heart-broken. Still, it wasn't as if I really needed anything just now. It would have been ridiculous extravagance. But it really was an angel."
She turned to go, stopping a moment on the way out to have another look at herself in the little round mirror over the mantel-piece.
"I'm not quite happy about it," I heard her murmur as she went out.
The next morning I found a letter waiting for me at the office which brought me news of a totally unexpected windfall of some fifty odd pounds. It was a sunny morning, too, with a distinct feeling of Spring in the air.
I felt like being extravagant, and my mind flew at once to Nancy and her jade-green—what was the name of the thing?—that she had wanted so badly.
I left the office early, and on my way home managed to summon up sufficient courage to carry me through the discreetly curtained doors of Madame Marguerite's recherché establishment, devoutly hoping that the nervous sinking which I felt about my heart was not reflected in my outer demeanour.
The red-haired girl, in spite of a curiously detached and supercilious air, as who should say, "Take it or leave it; it concerns me not in the least," which at first rather alarmed me, was really quite kind and helpful.
"Something in jade-green that Moddom admired? A hat perhaps?"