Margaret was staring with unembarrassed interest as the man produced four new five-pound notes from his wallet and laid them on the counter with what was almost a shiver of reluctance. Jean could sense his anxiety at parting with such a large sum of money all at once. It would take her nearly a month to earn it.

“Well done, you two!” said Howard when the customer had gone on his way, carrying the dainty bag a trifle self-consciously, having failed in his attempt to squash it into his pocket. “That’s the best sale I’ve made all day.”

“I take no credit,” said Jean. “I don’t think I have any knack for selling.”

“I’m not sure I have, either,” Howard admitted. “Which is unfortunate.”

“I think to be a convincing salesperson you have to be a spender yourself. I’m far too careful.”

“I used to like buying toys, but now I’ve got Jemimah I don’t need anything else,” said Margaret piously.

“Oh yes, Jemimah’s been a great success,” Howard said to Jean. “I can’t think how we got by without her. Now, we just sit around bitterly regretting the wasted rabbit-less years.”

Jean smiled. He had such a droll way of speaking that it was a pleasure to be teased by him. She thought again of their first meeting; how awkward and unimpressive she had found him, and how unworthy of his pretty young wife. Now, she felt the good fortune was all on Gretchen’s side. He was by some stretch the nicest man she had ever met.

It also occurred to her that his first impression of her might not have been especially favorable. She had no illusions or anxieties about her own lack of physical beauty; her ordinariness, in fact, grew less irksome with every passing year. It had been dispiriting to be plain at twenty, but by forty it hardly mattered. Time had caught up with most of her prettier contemporaries and those with the most to lose seemed to feel its depredations the hardest.

The arrival of another customer, a woman whose immaculate hair, hat, gloves and fashionable suit seemed suggestive of a promising combination of wealth and vanity, signaled to Jean that it was time to depart. Affecting the air of satisfied shoppers, she and Margaret slipped out with a discreet goodbye.

“I wonder if Mummy’s been all right,” said Margaret, twirling her handbag as they walked down Bedford Street in the direction of Charing Cross. “She promised she’d make spitzbuben for tea.”

“What’s spitzbuben?”

“They’re jam cookies.”

“I’ve learned so many new words today,” Jean mused. “Ormolu. Spitzbuben. I shall need a notebook of my own to keep track of them.”

“You must decide where you want to go on our next outing,” said Jean as they approached 7 Burdett Road. “Maybe the zoo, if you haven’t been recently?”

“I’d like to go swimming,” Margaret said. “But only if you come in the water with me. It doesn’t count if you just sit on the side and watch.”