After
breakfast Carol bustled to a hair-dresser's, bought gloves and a blouse,
and importantly met Kennicott in front of an optician's, in accordance
with plans laid down, revised, and verified. They admired the diamonds
and furs and frosty silverware and mahogany chairs and polished morocco
sewing-boxes in shop-windows, and were abashed by the throngs in the
department-stores, and were bullied by a clerk into buying too many
shirts for Kennicott, and gaped at the "clever novelty perfumes--just
in from New York." Carol got three books on the theater, and spent
an exultant hour in warning herself that she could not afford this
rajah-silk frock, in thinking how envious it would make Juanita Haydock,
in closing her eyes, and buying it. Kennicott went from shop to shop,
earnestly hunting down a felt-covered device to keep the windshield of
his car clear of rain.
They dined extravagantly at their hotel at night, and next morning
sneaked round the corner to economize at a Childs' Restaurant. They were
tired by three in the afternoon, and dozed at the motion-pictures and
said they wished they were back in Gopher Prairie--and by eleven in the
evening they were again so lively that they went to a Chinese restaurant
that was frequented by clerks and their sweethearts on pay-days.
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