"That would be one greeting less to exchange at Christmas," said Clovis.
THE DREAMER
It was the season of sales. The august establishment of Walpurgis and
Nettlepink had lowered its prices for an entire week as a concession to
trade observances, much as an Arch-duchess might protestingly contract an
attack of influenza for the unsatisfactory reason that influenza was
locally prevalent. Adela Chemping, who considered herself in some
measure superior to the allurements of an ordinary bargain sale, made a
point of attending the reduction week at Walpurgis and Nettlepink's.
"I'm not a bargain hunter," she said, "but I like to go where bargains
are."
Which showed that beneath her surface strength of character there flowed
a gracious undercurrent of human weakness.
With a view to providing herself with a male escort Mrs. Chemping had
invited her youngest nephew to accompany her on the first day of the
shopping expedition, throwing in the additional allurement of a
cinematograph theatre and the prospect of light refreshment. As Cyprian
was not yet eighteen she hoped he might not have reached that stage in
masculine development when parcel-carrying is looked on as a thing
abhorrent.
"Meet me just outside the floral department," she wrote to him, "and
don't be a moment later than eleven."
Cyprian was a boy who carried with him through early life the wondering
look of a dreamer, the eyes of one who sees things that are not visible
to ordinary mortals, and invests the commonplace things of this world
with qualities unsuspected by plainer folk--the eyes of a poet or a house
agent.
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