"No, madam," he stammered, "I remember Mr. Whittaker buying the ring and the bangle for the young lady--I--I was thinking of quite another customer." At that moment another figure came from the office behind the shop. It was, indeed, the assistant who had actually attended to their wants on the occasion of her previous visit. "I hope," said he, "that the bracelet that Mr. Whittaker bought the other day met with your approval, madam." For a moment Regina felt as if the earth were opening under her feet; a wild impulse seized her to catch violently hold of something, and scream in a series of sharp intermittent yelps as a locomotive does when something has gone wrong, and a wild instinct to catch the two smooth-faced young men on the other side of the counter by the ears and bang their heads together--a feeling as if heaven and earth were slipping away from her. But Regina was a remarkable woman! She had her vanities and her weaknesses, but in all the emergencies of life Regina might be counted upon for not losing her head. In spite of the sea of tempestuous emotions which surged within her at that moment, she maintained her dignity and her common-sense. "No," said she, "I have not yet seen it. I am afraid that you have given my husband away; as a matter of fact I have a birthday next week." It was the first plump and deliberate lie that Regina had ever told in her life. She did not hurry out of the shop--she even went so far as to choose a little present for her lord, going back with a curious persistence to the idea of pink coral, and bought for him what Julia would have described as a perfectly sweet tie pin, consisting of a bit of pink coral set between two small but fiery diamonds. "Mr. Johnson," said the younger of the two assistants, as the door closed behind Regina, "you have put your foot in it this time." "Why--how--what d'you mean?" "Simply this, that Mr. Alfred Whittaker, of Ye Dene, Northampton Park, won't thank you for letting on to that good lady that he was here last week buying a bracelet that she don't know anything about." "Oh Lord! I never thought of it. She said she had a birthday next week." "She said, yes, she _said_, but that ain't any proof to me; I never saw an old girl pull herself together in a neater manner; she even went so far as to buy a tie pin on the strength of it. But, mark my words, Mr. Alfred Whittaker won't thank you for letting on to that lady that he was here last week buying that bracelet." "If I thought that," said Mr. Johnson, "I'd put my head straight in a bag." "If it had been me," said the other, "being a youngster I might have been excused, but an old hand like you--tittle-tattling about other customers' purchases--you ought to know better." "You are quite right; I deserve anything that may come of it; I don't think that I have ever done such an idiotic thing in my life. What can I do to make up for it?"