THE drive to London was a silent one. Mr. Basingstoke did not want to talk; he had come on one of those spaces where the emotions sleep, exhausted¹. He felt nothing any more, neither anxiety as to the future nor pleasure at the nearness of the furry² heap beside him under which, presently, his companion slumbered³ peacefully as a babe in its cot. His mind was blank, his heart was numbed⁴; it was not till the car reached the houses spilled over the pretty fields like ugly toys emptied out of the play-box of a giant child, that mind or heart made any movement. Then it happened that the breeze caught the edge of the fur and lifted it, and he saw her little face softly flushed with sleep, lying very near him, and his heart seemed all at once to come to life again with an awakening⁵ stab of something that was not affection or even passion, but a kind of protective exultation—a deep, keen longing⁶ to take care of, to guard, to infold safely from all possible dangers and sorrows her who slept so happy-helpless beside him. Then his mind awoke, too, and he found himself wondering. The Schultz episode, his suspicions, resentment—the explication—all this should, one would have thought, have brushed, like a rough hand, the bloom from the adventure. And, instead of taking anything away, it had, even as she had said, added a soft touch of intimacy⁷ to their friendship. Further, he now in his heart had the memory that, for an instant, his thoughts had wronged her, that he had suspected her of wavering, almost of light-mindedness, though his thought had taken no such definite lines even to itself in its secret heart—and all the time there had only been thought for him, sincere, delicate consideration, and, in the matter of that man's accepted help, the trust of a child, and that innocence⁸ of Una before which even lions like Schultz become shy and safe. Imagine a subject who has suspected his princess of being, perhaps, not a princess at all, but one masquerading in the robes and crown of a princess . . . when he shall find her to be indeed royal, to what an ecstasy⁹ of loyalty¹⁰ will not his heart attain¹¹? So it was now with Mr. Basingstoke. He caught the corner of the fur and reverently¹² covered the face of his princess.  
 
And now the houses were thick and the shops began to score the streets with lines of color. He stopped at one of those big shops where they sell everything, and she awoke and said, "Are we there?"
 
"I thought," said he, "that you said something about a hat."
 
"Here?" she said, looking at the shop with strong distaste.
 
"Better here than really in London, I thought. And you'll want other things. And do you mind buying a box or a portmanteau or something? Because hotels like you to have luggage."
 
"I've been thinking—" she said, but he interrupted her.
 
"Forgive me," he said, "but even you cannot think your best thoughts when you're asleep."
 
Then she laughed. "Well, you must give me the money," she said, holding out a bare, unashamed hand, "because I haven't any."
 
He composed himself to wait, and he waited a long time, a very, very long time. He cheered the waiting by the thought that she could not, after all, have found the shop so unsuitable as it had, at the first glance, seemed. He watched the doorway¹³, and his eye became weary of the useless snippets of lace and silk at something eleven-three with which the windows at each side of the door were plastered. He noticed the people who went in, and the many more who waited outside and longed for these absurd decorations—longed with that passion which, almost alone of the passions, a girl may display to the utmost immoderation without fear of censure¹⁴ or of shame. He observed the longing in the eyes of little, half-developed, half-grown girls for this or that bit of worthless frippery; he would have liked to call to them and say, "My dear children, do go in and buy yourself each a fairing, and let me pay." But he knew that so straightforward¹⁵ and simple a kindness would draw on him and on the children shame and censure almost immeasurable. So he just sat and was sorry for them, till he saw two of them titter together and look at him.
 
Then he got out of the car and went into the shop—they sold toys there as well as everything else—to buy something himself. He could not find exactly what he wanted—in shops crowded with glittering uselessnesses it is rarely that you can find the particular uselessness on which you have set your heart—but Tommy of the Five Bells had no fault to find with the big, brown-papered parcel which reached him by the next day's afternoon post. He could not imagine any soldiers more perfectly¹⁶ satisfying than these, no bricks more solid and square, no drafts more neatly¹⁷ turned, no dominoes more smoothly¹⁸ finished. To Mr. Basingstoke's old nurse the world seemed to hold nothing fairer than the lace collar and the violet-silk necktie. "Do me for Sundays for years," she said, putting them back in their tissue-paper and turning her attention to the box of sweets and the stockings for the children. The girl who sold Mr. Basingstoke the lace collar sniggered apart with a kindred sniggerer as she sold it to him, and delayed to make out his bill, but the other girl, almost a child, with a black bow tying her hair, sold him the stockings and was sympathetic and helpful.
 
"How many stockings ought a child to have, so as to have plenty?" he asked her, confidentially¹⁹. At the lace-counter he had made his own choice, in stern silence.
 
"Three pairs," said the girl; "that's one in wear, one in the wash, and one in case of accidents." She glanced through the glass door at the motor, and decided²⁰ that he could afford it. "But, of course, four would be better."
 
"I should think six would be best," said he, "that's one for each day in the week, and on Saturday they can stay in bed while their mother does the washing."
 
"You don't wash on Saturdays," said the girl, her little, plain face lighting²¹ up with a smile. She saw the eye of the shop-walker on her and added, nervously²², "Shall we say six, then, sir; and what size? I mean what aged²³ child? About what price?"
 
"Three to eleven," said he.
 
"They're one and eleven-three," said she.
 
"I mean the children, not the stockings—there are five of them—what's five sixes?"
 
"Thirty," the girl told him, with a glance at the shop-walker that was almost defiant²⁴ in its triumph.
 
"That's it, then," said he, "and sort out the sizes properly, please, will you? Three six, two sevens, ten and eleven. And put in some garters—children's stockings are always coming down, you know—"
 
The girl had not before sold garters to insane but agreeable gentlemen. She hesitated and said in a low voice, "I don't think garters, sir. Suspenders are more worn now—"
 
"Well, suspenders then. The means doesn't matter—it's the keeping up that's the important thing." He laid a five-pound note on the counter, just as the shop-walker came up to her with a slightly insolent²⁵, "Serving, Miss Moore?"
 
"Sign, sir," said Miss Moore, defending herself from his displeasure with the bill. "Anything more, sir?"
 
"I want some sweets," said Edward, and was directed to "the third shop on the left, through there."
 
It was not till two weeks later that a satined and beribboned box of sweets arrived by post for Miss Moore. "From Mary," said the legend within, and the postmark was Warwick. Mr. Basingstoke counted on every one's having at least one relation or friend bearing that commonest and most lovely of all names. And he was right. A distant cousin got the credit of the gift, which made the little apprentice²⁶ happy for a day and interested for a week—exactly as Mr. Basingstoke had intended. His imagination pleased him with the picture of the sudden surprise of a gift, in that drab and subordinated life. By such simple means Mr. Basingstoke added enormously to his own agreeable sensations. And by such little exercises of memory as that which registered Miss Moore's name and the address of the shop he made those pleasures possible for himself. The sweets he bought on that first day of his elopement went to his nurse. He might have added more gifts, for the pleasure of spending money was still as new as nice, but the voice of Charles without drew him from the shop to settle a difference of opinion between that tethered dog and the chauffeur²⁷.
 
"Wanted to hang hisself over the side of the car," the man explained, "and no loss to his mourning relations, if you ask me," he added, sourly.
 
Edward had hardly adjusted the situation before she came out—and he felt the sight of her was worth waiting for. She wore now a white coat with touches of black velvet²⁸, and the hat was white, too, with black and a pink rose or two.
 
"It looks more like Bond Street than Peckham," he said as she got in. "It surpasses my wildest dreams."
 
"I had to make them trim it," she said, "that's why I was such ages. All the ones they had were like Madge Wildfire—insane, wild, unrelated feathers and bows born in Bedlam²⁹."
 
Her eyes, under the brim of the new hat, thrilled him, and when Charles, leaping on her lap, knocked the hat

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