By an automatic reaction, one that felt strangely familiar to Vera, she leaned into Shay as he hung his arm over her shoulder in an affectionate manner, perhaps this knowledge on how to behave when in [i]love[/i], came from hours spent watching the Roughers and their ladies mingling under the dim haze of the Tawdry. Tipping her face up to look at him, like she had watched so many couples do, a pleasant look came over her face, one that could easily denote as love, or endearment. The smell of cigarette smoke hung about him, and while it never bothered her before, and it didn’t now, it provided a rather comforting effect.

	Leonard had returned from the back room bearing a rather robust selection of soft-hued swatches, and arrayed them in a fashionable presence, it had appeared that he overheard Shay speaking, for it was evident, of the look his hawkish visage portrayed, one of utmost disgust, though Vera had not witnessed the deeply etched scowl on his face.

“Thank you for moving the car, dear. Well, I’m afraid not… Leonard here went to fetch some swatches from the back. We’ll see if I like any of the fabrics he has. I took a gander at everything in the store here, and unfortunately, everything is either made for a heifer, or a twig-thin child.”  

“I think it a shame.” Leonard spat. Now he had her attention, for her gaze travelled to stare at him in utter shock, mouth slightly agape, eyes wide in astonishment. She had felt the condemnation coming from the moment she walked in to the shop, and fell under his scrutinizing stare.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me right, miss. I said, I think it’s a damned shame. So you can quit your gawking at me like some ignorant pheasant. Out of all the good English men that went to serve in the war, died, came back maimed, and you bed down with a pot-lickin’, potato-farmin’ harpie with the likes of this man. It is an utter disgrace for you to be seen in public with the likes of him. Have you no shame, or self-respect? Surely a woman like yourself would have some sense of virtue.” 

“How dare you criticize us!” Vera exclaimed, now she could feel the blood boiling in her veins. She was never one to insult anyone, even if it came to a person’s ethnicity, unless of course, they committed a personal foul against Vera. “I would think that a shopkeeper in this part of town would have enough sense to keep his bloody fucking mouth shut for the sake of making a sale.”

“My shop does well without the need of a green-eared bog-trotter with the likes of you coming in here, and foulin’ up my shop with that horrid stench of you.” Leonard focused then on Shay. Bertie, the young sales girl, squirmed in discomfort upon hearing the insults, she had a youthful mind, but despite that fact, she clearly knew right from wrong, and felt no need to jump into the dispute.