I expect Dawson will give me warning; she told me yesterday that she 'had never know any other lady that writes so much or used them big sheets of paper, quite henormous, my lady.' Dear old place, isn't it? Ever tasted any of that fried pumpkin? It's rather nasty but quite good; have some? I wonder we've not met here before; I come here twice a week to shop. You don't mind carrying parcels, do you?" Lady Tal had stopped at one of the front stalls, and having had three vast yellow paper bags filled with oranges and lemons, she handed the two largest to Marion.
"You'll carry them for me, won't you, there's a good creature: like that I shall be able to get rather more rolls than I usually can. It's astonishing how much sick folk care for rolls. I ought to explain I'm going to see some creatures at the hospital. It takes too long going there in the gondola from my place, so I walk. If you were to put those bags well on your chest like that, under your chin, they'd be easier to hold, and there'd be less chance of the oranges bobbing out."
At a baker's in one of the little narrow streets near the church of the Miracoli, Lady Atalanta provided herself with a bag of rolls, which she swung by the string to her wrist. Marion then perceived that she was carrying under her arm a parcel of paper-covered books, fastened with an elastic band.
"Now we shall have got everything except some flowers, which I daresay we can get somewhere on the way," remarked Lady Tal. "Do you mind coming in here?" and she entered one of those little grocer's shops, dignified with the arms of Savoy in virtue of the sale of salt and tobacco, and where a little knot of vague, wide-collared individuals usually hang about among the various-shaped liqueur bottles in an atmosphere of stale cigar, brandy and water, and kitchen soap.
"May—I—a—a—ask for anything for you, Lady Tal?" requested Marion, taken completely by surprise by the rapidity of his companion's movements. "You want stamps, I presume; may I have the honour of assisting you in your purchase?"
"Thanks, it isn't stamps; it's snuff, and you wouldn't know what sort to get." And Lady Tal, making her stately way through the crowd of surprised loafers, put a franc on the counter and requested the presiding female to give her four ounces of Semolino, but of the good sort——;"It's astonishing how faddy those old creatures are about their snuff!" remarked Lady Tal, pocketing her change. "Would you put this snuff in your pocket for me? Thanks. The other sort's called Bacubino, it's dark and clammy, and it looks nasty. Have you ever taken snuff? I do sometimes to please my old creatures; it makes me sneeze, you know, and they think that awful fun."
As they went along Lady Atalanta suddenly perceived, in a little green den, something which attracted her attention.
"I wonder whether they're fresh?" she mused. "I suppose you can't tell a fresh egg when you see it, can you, Mr. Marion? Never mind, I'll risk it. If you'll take this third bag of oranges, I'll carry the eggs—they might come to grief in your hands, you know."
"What an odious, odious creature a woman is," thought Marion. He wondered, considerably out of temper, why he should feel so miserable at having to carry all those oranges. Of course with three gaping bags piled on his chest there was the explanation of acute physical discomfort; but that wasn't sufficient. It seemed as if this terrible, aristocratic giantess were doing it all on purpose to make him miserable. He saw that he was intensely ridiculous in her eyes, with those yellow bags against his white waistcoat and the parcel of snuff in his coat pocket; his face was also, he thought, streaming with perspiration, and he couldn't get at his handkerchief. It was childish, absurd of him to mind; for, after all, wasn't Lady Atalanta equally burdened? But she, with her packets of rolls, and packet of books, and basket of eggs, and her umbrella tucked under her arm, looked serene and even triumphant in her striped flannel.
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