There was nothing she liked better, she said, than shopping for pretty clothes and basking in the flattering attentions of persuasive sales ladies, also it would give her an excuse to prolong her visit with her Aunt Alice. “Why not let us run down to Dublin for a couple of nights and do the thing properly, Duff?”“I’ll not risk Harriet getting a taste for city ways. The local shops are quite good enough for our requirements here. We don’t entertain,” he said, and Samantha looked amused.“Are you going to make the same mistake all over again, darling?” she said softly. “Even the most devoted wife needs an occasional break from Clooney’s splendid isolation.”“I think you must be forgetting, Samantha. My mistake didn’t lie in denying freedom but in allowing too much, and—no, I don’t intend to make it again,” he replied. “Apart from that I can no longer afford the extravagance of eight years ago, as you should remember.”“I don’t have to go to Dublin for the few clothes I’ll need here, Samantha, and Duff—I haven’t got extravagant tastes, as you should know, so if you can’t afford—”“I’m not on the breadline yet, my dear, so don’t look so guilty,”
