But he did not look as impressed as one to whom a farewell speech
was being made should look. In fact, he did not seem to be hearing
it. Once more, and in earnest this time, he appeared to be thinking
of something very far away. Then all at once he came back, and it
was in anything but a far-away voice he began, briskly: "Now look
here, Young Lady, I don't doubt but this lace is great stuff. You
say so, and I haven't seen man, woman or child on this side of the
Atlantic knows as much as you do. I'm mighty grateful for the
lace--don't you forget that, but just the same--well, now I'll tell
you. I have a very special reason for wanting something a little
livelier than lace. Something that seems to have Paris written on it
in red letters--see? Now, where do you get the kind of hats you see
some folks wearing, and where do you get the dresses--well, it's
hard to describe 'em, but the kind they have in pictures marked
'Breezes from Paris'? You see--_S-ay!_--_what_ do you think of
_that?_"

"That" was in a window across the street. It was an opera cloak. He
walked toward it, Virginia following. "Now _there_," he turned
to her, his large round face all aglow, "is what I want."

It was yellow; it was long; it was billowy; it was insistently and
recklessly regal.

"That's the ticket!" he gloated.

"Of course," began Virginia, "I don't know anything about it. I am
in a very strange position, not knowing what your wife likes or--or
has. This is the kind of thing everything has to go _with_ or