Audrey did not deem that she had begun truly to live until the next morning, when they left London, after having passed a night in the Charing¹ Cross Hotel. During several visits to London in the course of the summer Audrey had learnt something about the valuelessness of money in a metropolis² chiefly inhabited by people who were positively³ embarrassed by their riches. She knew, for example, that money being very plentiful⁴ and stylish⁵ hats very rare, large quantities of money had to be given for infinitesimal quantities of hats. The big and glittering shops were full of people whose pockets bulged⁶ with money which they were obviously anxious to part with in order to obtain goods, while the proud shop-assistants, secure in the knowledge that money was naught⁷ and goods were everything, did their utmost, by hauteur⁸ and steely negatives, to render any transaction possible. It was the result of a mysterious “Law of Exchange.” She was aware of this. She had lost her childhood’s naive⁹ illusions about the sovereignty of money.