He had brought with him only his dressing-bag, so they were not detained at the Customs.  His valet was following with the rest of his luggage, and as soon as she had had a few hours’ sleep, he would take her to different shops.  She clung on to his arm.  Paris seemed very cold and cheerless, and she did not like the tall, haggard houses, nor the slattern waiter arranging chairs in front of an early cafe, nor the humble servant clattering down the pavement in wooden shoes.  She saw these things with tired eyes, and she was dimly aware of a decrepit carriage drawn by two decrepit horses, and then of a great hotel built about a courtyard.  She heard Owen arguing about rooms, but it seemed to her that a room where there was a bed was all that she desired.

But the blank hotel bedroom, so formal and cheerless, frightened her, and it seemed to her that she could not undress and climb into that high bed, and she had no clothes—­not even a nightgown.  The chambermaid brought her a cup of chocolate, and when she had drunk it she fell asleep, seeing the wood fire burning, and thinking how tired she was.

It was the chambermaid knocking.  It was time for her to get up, and Owen had sent her a brush and comb.  She could only wash her face with the corner of a damp towel.  Her stockings were full of dust; her chemise was like a rag—­all, she reflected, the discomforts of an elopement.  As she brushed out her hair with Owen’s brush, she wondered what he could see to like in her.  She admired his discretion in not coming to her room.  But really, this hotel seemed as unlikely a place for love-making as the gloomy plain of Picardy.

She was pinning on her hat when he knocked.  He told her that he had been promised some nice rooms on the second floor later in the day, and they went to breakfast at Voisin’s.  The rest of the day was spent getting in and out of cabs.

They took the shops as they came.  The first was a boot and shoe maker, and in a few moments between four and five hundred francs had been spent.  This seemed to Evelyn an unheard-of extravagance.  Tea-gowns at five hundred and six hundred francs apiece were a joy to behold and a delicacy to touch.  The discovery that every petticoat cost fifty francs seriously alarmed her.  They visited the bonnet shop later in the afternoon.  By that time she had grown hardened, and it seemed almost natural to pay two hundred francs for a hat.  Two of her dresses were bought ready made.  A saleswoman held out the skirt of a flowered silk, which she was to wear that night at the opera; another stood by, waiting for her and Owen to approve of the stockings she held in her hands.  Some were open-work and embroidered, and the cheapest were fifteen francs a pair.  It had to be decided whether these should be upheld by suspenders or by garters.  Owen’s taste was for garters, and the choice of a pair filled them with a pleasurable embarrassment.  In the next shop—­it was a glove shop—­as