Then, behind the counter, she saw a girl whom she used to serve with a glass of milk every morning.

‘Oh, Miss Lawton,’ she cried, as an equal to an equal, ’can you tell me where the stoles are to be found?’

‘Probably over there, Mrs. Shawn,’ said Miss Lawton kindly, nodding the greeting she had no time to utter.

So Lily got away from the counter, plunged into a chartless sea of customers, and eventually emerged in the quarter which had been indicated.

‘All sold out, miss!’

Such was the blunt answer to her demand for a silvered fox-stole.

‘Don’t talk to me like that!’ said Mrs. Albert Shawn.  ’It isn’t above half-past nine on the first morning of the sale, and you advertised two thousand of them.’

‘Sorry, miss.  All sold out,’ repeated the second shopwalker.

‘I shall report this to Mr. Hugo.  Do you know who I am?  I’m—­’

And the second shopwalker also turned his back.

Could these things be happening at Hugo’s, at Hugo’s, so famous for the courtesy, the long patience, the indestructible politeness of its well-paid employes?  And could Hugo have descended to the trickeries of the eleven-pence-halfpenny draper, who proclaimed non-existent bargains to lure the unwary into his shop?  Lily might have wondered if she was not dreaming, but she was far too practical ever to be in the least doubt as to whether she was asleep or awake.  And now she perceived that scores of angry women about her were equally disappointed by the disgraceful absence of those stoles.  The department, misty, stuffy, and noisy, had the air of being the scene of an insurrection.  One lady was informing the public generally that she had demanded a guinea stole at three minutes past nine, and had been put off with a monstrous excuse.  And then a newspaper reporter appeared, and began to take notes.  The din increased, though shopwalkers said less and less, and the chances seemed in favour of the insurrection becoming a riot.  Other admirable bargains in furs were indubitably to be had—­muffs, for example—­and the cashiers were busy; but nothing could atone for the famine of stoles.

Lily had a suspicion that Albert would have wished her to report these singular circumstances to Hugo at once.  But she dismissed the suspicion, because she passionately desired an ‘Incroyable’ corset at twelve and eleven, and she feared lest the corsets might have vanished as strangely as the stoles.  In ten minutes, breathless, she had reached the corset department, demanded an ‘Incroyable’ of the correct size, and bought it.  There was no dissatisfaction in the corset department.

‘Shall we send it, miss?’

‘Madam,’ said Lily proudly.  ‘No, I’ll take it.’

‘Yes, madam.’

At the cash desk (No. 56) she had to wait her turn in a disorderly queue before she could tender the bill and her five-pound note.  Customers pressed round her on all sides as she put down the note and peered through the wire network into the interior of the desk.