"How perfectly delightful to meet a girl who wears neither sensible boots nor spectacles but who appreciates Shakespeare! Lud! I thought such treasures were mythical. Flamby, I have a great idea. If you love Portia you will love Ellen Terry. I suppose her Portia is no more than a memory of the old Lyceum days, but it is a golden memory, Flamby. Ellen Terry is at the Coliseum. Shall we go to-night? Perhaps the Aunt would join us."

"Oh!" said Flamby, her eyes alight with excitement; but the one word was sufficient.

"Right!" cried Don. "Now for Liberty's."

They entered the cab, and as it moved off, "What is Liberty's?" asked Flamby.

"The place for rummy furniture," explained Don. "n.o.body else could possibly provide the things for your den. The Aunt once had a cottage in Devon furnished by Liberty and it was the most perfect gem of a cottage one could imagine."

"Was she very well off once?"

"The Aunt? Why the dear old lady ought to be worth thousands. Her husband left her no end of money and property. She has travelled nearly all over the civilised world, Flamby, and now is tied to that one tiny room at The Hostel."

"But how is it? Did she lose her money?"

"She gave it away and let everybody rob her. The world unfortunately is full of d.i.c.k Turpins and Jack Sheppards, not to mention their lady friends."

"Ah," said Flamby and sat silent for some time studying the panorama of the busy London streets. "Is Liberty's dear?" she inquired presently.

"Not at all; most reasonable."

"I'm glad," replied Flamby. "I have got seven pounds ten saved. Will that be enough?"

Don held his breath. Flamby's extraordinary erudition and inherent cleverness had not prepared him for this childish ignorance of the value of money. But he realised immediately that it was no more than natural after all and that he might have antic.i.p.ated it; and secretly he was delighted because of the opportunity which it offered him of repaying in part, or of trying to repay, the debt which he owed to Michael Duveen.

Moreover he had found that to give pleasure to Flamby was a gracious task.

"It may not cover everything," he said casually, "but the sum held by Mr. Nevin will more than do so. Think no more about it. I will see that your expenditures do not exceed your means."

They alighted near that window of Messrs. Liberty's which is devoted to the display of velvet robes--of those simple, unadorned creations which Golders Green may view unmoved but which stir the aesthetic soul of Chelsea. In the centre of the window, cunningly draped before an oak-pannelled background, hung a dress of grey velvet which was the apogee and culmination of Flamby's dreams. For not all the precepts of the Painted Portico can quench in the female bosom woman's innate love of adornment. a.s.suredly Eve wore flowers in her hair.

"Oh," whispered Flamby, "do you think it is very dear?"

Don having paid the cabman, had joined her where she stood. "Which one?"

he inquired with masculine innocence.

"The grey one. There is nothing on it at all. I have seen dresses in Dale's at home with yards of embroidery that were only four pounds."

"I don't suppose so," said Don cheerfully. "Let us go in and try it on.

_You_ try it on, I mean."

"Oh, I daren't! I didn't dream of _buying_ it," cried Flamby, flushing hotly. "I was only admiring it."

"And because you admire it you don't dream of buying it? That is odd.

And surely grey is what is known as 'half-mourning' too, is it not?

Absolutely correct form."

"But it may be frightfully dear. I will ask the price when Mrs. Chumley is with me." Flamby was weakening.

Don grasped her firmly by the arm and led her vastly perturbed into the shop, where a smiling saleswoman accosted them. "This lady wishes to see the grey gown you have in the window," he said. He drew the woman aside and added, "Don't tell her the price! You understand? If she insists upon knowing take your cue from me." He could say no more as Flamby had drawn near.

"How much is it?" she inquired naively.

"I don't know yet," replied Don. "Won't you look at it first?"

"The dress is a model, madam," said the puzzled modiste. "Probably we should have to alter it to fit you."

"Would that be extra?" asked Flamby.

"Only a trifle," Don a.s.sured her, "if you really like it."

"How much is it please?" Flamby asked.

Don, standing just behind her became troubled with a tickling in the throat, and the woman, hesitating, looked up and detected his urgent glance. He raised three fingers furtively. She could scarcely conceal her amazement, but an emphatic nod from Don left her in no doubt respecting his meaning.

"I believe it is--three guineas, madam," she replied in a forced and unnatural voice. She was wondering what would become of her if this very eccentric officer played her false.

Flamby turned thoughtfully to Don. "That's expensive isn't it?" she said.

The saleswoman's amazement increased; words failed her entirely, and to cover her embarra.s.sment she opened the screen at the back of the window and took out the grey gown. Flamby's eyes sparkled.

"But isn't it sweet," she whispered. "Where do I go to try it on?"

"This way, madam," said the woman, darting an imploring glance at Don to which he was unable to respond as Flamby was looking in his direction.

Flamby disappeared into a fitting-room and Don sat down to consider the question of how far he could hope to pursue his plot without being unmasked.

He lighted a cigarette and gave himself up to reflection on the point.

When presently Flamby came out, radiant, followed by the troubled attendant carrying the grey gown, he was prepared for her.

"I'm going to have it!" she said. "Am I frightfully extravagant?"

"Not at all," Don a.s.sured her; and as she took out her purse. "No," he added, "you must not pay cash, Flamby. It would confuse Nevin's books. I will write a cheque and charge it to your account together with the other purchases."

He withdrew with the saleswoman, leaving Flamby seated looking at the velvet frock draped across a chair. Having proceeded to a discreet distance--"What is the price of the dress, please?" he asked.

"With the alterations which madam requires, eighteen guineas, sir."

"I will give you a draft on Uncle c.o.x," replied Don, taking out his cheque-book and fountain-pen. "You must feel rather bewildered, but the fact of the matter is that the lady chances to be the orphan of a very dear friend, and coming from a country place she has no idea of the cost of things. I would not disillusion her for the world, just yet. Will you please make a note to send the gown to Miss Duveen at this address." He laid one of his aunt's cards upon the table. "But--an important point--enclose no receipt; nothing that would afford a clue to the price. Will you remember?"

"I shall remember," said the saleswoman, greatly relieved and beginning to smile once more.

So the quaint comedy of deception began and so it proceeded right merrily; for pa.s.sing on to the furniture department, Don took the man aside and succeeded, although not without difficulty in this case, in making him an accomplice. As a result of the conspiracy Flamby purchased an exquisite little dressing-table of silver-maple (for thirty-five shillings), a large Axminster carpet and a Persian rug (three pounds, fifteen shillings), a miniature Jacobean oak suite (six guineas), a quaint bureau and bookcase (fifty shillings), and a perfect stack of cushions (at prices varying from half-a-crown to three shillings and elevenpence-three-farthings, or, in technical terminology, "three-and-eleven-three.") The man became infected with the quixotic spirit of the affair and revealed himself in his true colours as a hierophant of the higher mysteries. Producing secret keys, he exhibited those arcana, of the inner rooms which apparently are not for sale but which are kept solely for the purpose of dazzling the imagination: jade Buddhas, contemplative and priceless, locked in wonderful Burmese cabinets, strange ornaments of bra.s.s and perfume-burners from India, mandarin robes of peac.o.c.k-blue, and tiny caskets of that violet lacquering which is one of the lost arts of j.a.pan.

With some few items of gla.s.sware, vases and pictures purchased elsewhere, Flamby's expenditure amounted to more than twenty-five pounds, at which staggering total she stared in dismay. "Shall I really be able to pay it?" she asked.

"My dear Flamby, you have only just begun. The really essential things you will be able to buy when the Aunt is with you. I am instructing all the shops with which you may have occasion to do business to send accounts to Nevin. He will let you know quickly enough if you overstep the margin."