Who could tell, she asked herself with a quick, frightened gasp, but
that, after all, it might be that she was learning to care? From
Solomons's she bade the man drive to the shop in Cranbourne Street
where she was accustomed to purchase the materials she used in
painting, and Fate, which uses strange agents to work out its ends, so
directed it that the cabman stopped a few doors below this shop, and
opposite one where jewelry and other personal effects were bought and
sold. At any other time, or had she been in any other mood, what
followed might not have occurred, but Fate, in the person of the
cabman, arranged it so that the hour and the opportunity came
together.
There were some old mezzotints in the window of the loan-shop, a
string of coins and medals, a row of new French posters; and far down
to the front a tray filled with gold and silver cigarette-cases and
watches and rings. It occurred to Helen, who was still bent on making
restitution for her neglect, that a cigarette-case would be more
appropriate for a man than flowers, and more lasting. And she scanned
the contents of the window with the eye of one who now saw in
everything only something which might give Philip pleasure. The two
objects of value in the tray upon which her eyes first fell were the
gold seal-ring with which Philip had sealed his letters to her, and,
lying next to it, his gold watch! There was something almost human in
the way the ring and watch spoke to her from the past--in the way they
appealed to her to rescue them from the surroundings to which they had
been abandoned.
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