shop, but taking her in; with the assurance that his errands didn't
matter, that it amused him to be concerned with hers. She told him she
had come to buy a trimming for her sister's frock, and he expressed an
hilarious interest in the purchase. His hilarity was almost always out
of proportion to the case, but it struck her at present as more so than
ever; especially when she had suggested that he might find it a good
time to buy a garnishment of some sort for Mona. After wondering an
instant whether he gave the full satiric meaning, such as it was, to
this remark, Fleda dismissed the possibility as inconceivable. He
stammered out that it was for _her_ he would like to buy something,
something "ripping," and that she must give him the pleasure of telling
him what would best please her: he couldn't have a better opportunity
for making her a present--the present, in recognition of all she had
done for Mummy, that he had had in his head for weeks.

Fleda had more than one small errand in the big bazaar, and he went up
and down with her, pointedly patient, pretending to be interested in
questions of tape and of change. She had now not the least hesitation in
wondering what Mona would think of such proceedings. But they were not
her doing--they were Owen's; and Owen, inconsequent and even
extravagant, was unlike anything she had ever seen him before. He broke
off, he came back, he repeated questions without heeding answers, he
made vague, abrupt remarks about the resemblances of shopgirls and the
uses of chiffon. He unduly prolonged their business together, giving
Fleda a sense that he was putting off something particular that he had
to face. If she had ever dreamed of Owen Gereth as nervous she would
have seen him with some such manner as this. But why should he be
nervous? Even at the height of the crisis his mother hadn't made him so,
and at present he was satisfied about his mother. The one idea he stuck
to was that Fleda should mention something she would let him give her:
there was everything in the world in the wonderful place, and he made
her incongruous offers--a traveling-rug, a massive clock, a table for
breakfast in bed, and above all, in a resplendent binding, a set of
somebody's "works." His notion was a testimonial, a tribute, and the
"works" would be a graceful intimation that it was her cleverness he
wished above all to commemorate. He was immensely in earnest, but the
articles he pressed upon her betrayed