rooms, but it seemed to
her that a room where there was a bed was all that she desired.

But the blank hotel bedroom, so formal and cheerless, frightened her,
and it seemed to her that she could not undress and climb into that high
bed, and she had no clothes--not even a nightgown. The chambermaid
brought her a cup of chocolate, and when she had drunk it she fell
asleep, seeing the wood fire burning, and thinking how tired she was.

It was the chambermaid knocking. It was time for her to get up, and Owen
had sent her a brush and comb. She could only wash her face with the
corner of a damp towel. Her stockings were full of dust; her chemise was
like a rag--all, she reflected, the discomforts of an elopement. As she
brushed out her hair with Owen's brush, she wondered what he could see
to like in her. She admired his discretion in not coming to her room.
But really, this hotel seemed as unlikely a place for love-making as the
gloomy plain of Picardy.

She was pinning on her hat when he knocked. He told her that he had been
promised some nice rooms on the second floor later in the day, and they
went to breakfast at Voisin's. The rest of the day was spent getting in
and out of cabs.

They took the shops as they came. The first was a boot and shoe maker,
and in a few moments between four and five hundred francs had been
spent. This seemed to Evelyn an unheard-of extravagance. Tea-gowns at
five hundred and six hundred francs apiece were a joy to behold and a
delicacy to touch. The discovery that every petticoat cost fifty francs
seriously alarmed her. They visited the bonnet shop later in the
afternoon. By that time she had grown hardened, and it seemed almost
natural to pay two hundred francs for a hat. Two of her dresses were
bought ready made. A saleswoman held out the skirt of a flowered silk,
which she was to wear that night at the opera; another stood by, waiting
for her and Owen to approve of the stockings she held in her hands. Some
were open-work and embroidered, and the cheapest were fifteen francs a
pair. It had to be decided whether these should be upheld by suspenders
or by garters. Owen's taste was for garters, and the choice of a pair
filled them with a pleasurable embarrassment. In the next shop--it was a
glove shop--as she was about to consult him regarding the number of
buttons, she remembered, in a sudden moment of painful realisation, the
end for which they had met. She turned pale, and the words caugh