I took her to a shop, and she walked among the shining stuffs, forgetting me. She loved the gowns on the models. She felt contempt for no one who was dressed more beautifully than she—only for those who "knew more" than she. I thought how surely beauty and not knowledge is the primal teacher, universally welcomed. Beauty is power.
But the remnant basket did not please her, and we stepped into the street to seek another shop. And standing beside a motor door, close to the way we passed, were Mrs. Carney and John Ember.
It was only for a moment, then the door shut upon them and they drove away. But I had seen him as I had dreamed him, a little older, but always in that brown, incomparable youth. He was bending his head to listen—that was the way I always thought of him. He was giving some unsmiling assent. He was here, and no longer across the world. I stood still, staring after the car.
"Gee, that was a swell blue coat," said Lena. "I don't blame you for standing stock-still. I bet I could copy that.... Come on!"
I went with her. But I hardly heard her stream of comment and bitter chatter. And yet it was not all of John Ember that I was thinking, nor was I filled only with my singing consciousness that he was back. I was seeing again Mrs. Carney's face as she had turned to speak to him; glowing, relaxed, open like a flower.
Presently I was aware that Lena was not beside me. I looked and she was before the window of a shop. I crossed to her, and then I saw what she was looking at—no array of cheap blouses, price-marked, or of flaming plumes. She stood before the window of a children's outfitting shop.
I said nothing, nor did she. She looked, and I waited. The white things were exquisite and, I felt, remote. They were so dainty that I feared they would alienate her, because they were so much beyond her. But to my surprise, she turned to me:
"Could—could we go in here," she asked, "even if we didn't buy anything?"
We went in. Within the atmosphere was still more compact of delicate fabric and fashioning and color. An assured young woman came forward.