Half-way to the door, he touched her arm. “Let’s get it!” he said coax-ingly. “I don’t want it!” She turned a gaze on him—half-tragic, half-humorous.... “Do you know why I would not get it?” she demanded. “I don’t know anything!” he declared, jostling through the crowd to keep pace with her. “I’m incapable of knowing—anything!” She smiled—a little wistful smile—up at him. “I wouldn’t get it.... Can you hear me?” “Yes. I can hear you.” He bent his head to her, and they moved as a unit through the crowd. “I can hear you. Go ahead!” “I thought suddenly”—she gasped a little—“how awful it would be if Annabel should ever want to have clothes—things to wear—as badly as I wanted that coat—and all those dear little beasts winding around on it!... It wasn’t a coat!” Her lips were close to his ear, a little smile seemed to run from them to him, and he laughed out. “It wasn’t a coat!” she said fiercely. “It was a blue and gold temptation—with dragons! I wouldn’t have it—at any price!” “Not for fifty dollars?” he asked—and he bent a keen look at her unconscious face in the crowd. “Not if they would give it to me!” she said with swift decision. “I want Annabel to be mild in her nature!” Richard More followed her. Privately he fancied that Annabel would be a person who would know her own mind. If she wanted a blue and gold coat, she would have it, he thought; and if she didn’t want a blue and gold coat, she wouldn’t have it, he thought.... And William Archer—? Well—blue and gold were not exactly colors to be desired in the case of William Archer. In any case Annabel and William Archer must look out for themselves. He was going back to-morrow, or the first chance he could, and buy that Chinese coat for his wife. He wanted it for her.... As they made their way out of the store, he saw it again, wrapped about her, and he saw the down-bent face with its look of mystery, rising above the shimmering folds. VII She seemed to have brought away with her some secret of the coat—a touch of its mystery and charm. Richard watched her as she went about the house, occupied with little things. He fancied there was a look in her face that came and went shadowily—as if the curtains before a hidden place were swept aside by an unseen wind.... And before he could look again—it was gone. Her face in repose was very common-place, he knew; it had grown a little full and there was a humorous, almost conceited, little upward twist to the mouth, that he found annoying.... And then suddenly, when she was off guard, the look had fled and he was gazing at the strange face. He found himself growing troubled, driven by a force he did not quite comprehend—a disbelief in the solid earth and the turning of the seasons.... He had sown grass-seed in the new lot; the wall was finished and vines had been planted at its base. But the lot had to his eyes an unsubstantial look. He had an almost superstitious feeling that it had been bought with a price.