Part 18

"Well--if it was an accident."

He looked down upon her tenderly.

"No, Rose, it was not an accident. I couldn't bear that hat."

He put his hand on her arm and raised her to her feet.

"And now," he said, "the only thing we can do is to go and get another one."

They went slowly back, she shamefaced and bareheaded, he leading her by the arm till they found themselves in Heath Street outside a magnificent hat-shop.

Chance took him there, for Rose, interrogated on the subject of hat-shops, was obstinately reticent.

But here, in this temple, in its wonderful window, before a curtain, on a stage, like actors in a gay drama, he saw hats; black hats and white hats; green and blue and rose-coloured hats; hats of all shapes and sizes; airily perched; laid upon velvet; veiled and unveiled; befeathered and beflowered. Hats of a beauty and a splendour before which Rose had stood many a time in awful contemplation, and had hurried past with eyes averted, leaving behind her the impermissible dream.

And now she had a thousand scruples about entering. He had hit, she said, on the most expensive shop in Hampstead. Miss Kentish wouldn't think of buying a hat there. No, she wouldn't have it. He must please, please, Mr. Tanqueray, let her buy herself a plain straw and trim it.

But he seized her by the arm and drew her in. And once in there was no more use resisting, it only made her look foolish.

Reality with its harsh conditions had vanished for a moment. It was like a funny dream to be there, in Madame Rodier's shop, with Mr. Tanqueray looking at her as she tried on innumerable hats, and Madame herself, serving her, putting the hats on the right way, and turning her round and round so that Mr. Tanqueray could observe the effect from every side of her.

Madame talked all the time to Mr. Tanqueray and ignored Rose.

Rose had a mortal longing for a rose-coloured hat, and Madame wouldn't let her have it. Madame, who understood Mr. Tanqueray's thoughts better than if he had expressed them, insisted on a plain black hat with a black feather.

"That's madame's hat, sir," said Madame. "We must keep her very simple."

"We must," said Tanqueray, with fervour. He thought he had never seen anything so enchanting in its simplicity as Rose's face under the broad black brim with its sweeping feather.

Rose had to wear the hat going home. Tanqueray carried the old one in a paper parcel.

At the gate of the corner house he paused and looked at his watch.

"We've half-an-hour yet before we need go in. I want to talk to you."

He led her through the willows, and up the green slope opposite the house. There was a bench on the top, and he made her sit on it beside him.

"I suppose," he said, "you think that when we go in I shall let you wait on me, and it'll be just the same as it was before?"

"Yes, sir. Just the same."

"It won't, Rose, it can't. You may wait on me to-night, but I shall go away to-morrow."

She turned her face to him, it was dumb with its trouble.

"Oh no--no, sir--don't go away."

"I must. But before I go, I want to ask you if you'll be my wife----"

The hands she held clasped in her lap gripped each other tight. Her mouth was set.

"I'm asking you now, Rose. To be my wife. My wife," he repeated fiercely, as if he repelled with violence a contrary suggestion.

"I can't be your wife, sir," she said.