How good was the touch of the raw silk to her flesh! She felt like lying back in the cushioned chair and reveling for a while in the luxury of it.She did for a little while.Then she replaced her shoes, rolled the cotton stockings together and thrust them into her bag.After doing this she crossed straight over to the shoe department and took her seat to be fitted.
She was fastidious.The clerk could not make her out; he could not reconcile her shoes with her stockings, and she was not too easily pleased.She held back her skirts and turned her feet one way and her head another way as she glanced down at the polished, pointed-tipped boots.Her foot and ankle looked very pretty.She could not realize that they belonged to her and were a part of herself.She wanted an excellent and stylish fit, she told the young fellow who served her, and she did not mind the difference of a dollar or two more in the price so long as she got what she desired.
It was a long time since Mrs.Sommers had been fitted with gloves.On rare occasions when she had bought a pair they were always "bargains," so cheap that it would have been preposterous and unreasonable to have expected them to be fitted to the hand.
Now she rested her elbow on the cushion of the glove counter, and a pretty, pleasant young creature, delicate and deft of touch, drew a long- wristed "kid" over Mrs.Sommers's hand.She smoothed it down over the wrist and buttoned it neatly, and both lost themselves for a second or two in admiring contemplation of the little symmetrical gloved hand.Butthere were other places where money might be spent.
There were books and magazines piled up in the window of a stall a few paces down the street.Mrs.Sommers bought two high-priced magazines such as she had been accustomed to read in the days when she had been accustomed to other pleasant things.She carried them without wrapping.As well as she could she lifted her skirts at the crossings.Her stockings and boots and well fitting gloves had worked marvels in her bearing--had given her a feeling of assurance, a sense of belonging to the well-dressed multitude.
She was very hungry.Another time she would have stilled the cravings for food until reaching her own home, where she would have brewed herself a cup of tea and taken a snack of anything that was available.But the impulse that was guiding her would not suffer her to entertain any such thought.
There was a restaurant at the corner.She had never entered its doors; from the outside she had sometimes caught glimpses of spotless damask and shining crystal, and soft-stepping waiters serving people of fashion.
When she entered her appearance created no surprise, no consternation, as she had half feared it might.She seated herself at a small table alone, and an attentive waiter at once approached to take her order.She did not want a profusion; she craved a nice and tasty bite--a half dozen blue-points, a plump chop with cress, a something sweet--a creme-frappee, for instance; a glass of Rhine wine, and after all a small cup of black coffee.
While waiting to be served she removed her gloves very leisurely and laid them beside her.Then she picked up a magazine and glanced through it, cutting the pages with a blunt edge of her knife.It was all very agreeable.The damask was even more spotless than it had seemed through the window, and the crystal more sparkling.There were quiet ladies and gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own.A soft, pleasing strain of music could be heard, and a gentle breeze, was blowing through the window.She tasted a bite, and she read a word or two, and she sipped the amber wine and wiggled her toes in the silk stockings.The price of it made no difference.She counted the money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on his tray,whereupon he bowed before her as before a princess of royal blood.
There was still money in her purse, and her next temptation presented itself in the shape of a matinee poster.
It was a little later when she entered the theatre, the play had begun and the house seemed to her to be packed.But there were vacant seats here and there, and into one of them she was ushered, between brilliantly dressed women who had gone there to kill time and eat candy and display their gaudy attire.There were many others who were there solely for the play and acting.It is safe to say there was no one present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs.Sommers did to her surroundings.She gathered in the whole--stage and players and people in one wide impression, and absorbed it and enjoyed it.She laughed at the comedy and wept--she and the gaudy woman next to her wept over the tragedy.And they talked a little together over it.And the gaudy woman wiped her eyes and sniffled on a tiny square of filmy, perfumed lace and passed little Mrs.Sommers her box of candy.
The play was over, the music ceased, the crowd filed out.It was like a dream ended.People scattered in all directions.Mrs.Sommers went to the corner and waited for the cable car.
A man with keen eyes, who sat opposite to her, seemed to like the study of her small, pale face.It puzzled him to decipher what he saw there.In truth, he saw nothing-unless he were wizard enough to detect a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.
