"I like your dressing-gown, Mr. Machin," said Carlo Trent, suddenly, after his first spoonful of soup.
"Then I needn't apologize for it!" Edward Henry replied.
"It is the dressing-gown of my dreams," Carlo Trent went on.
"Well," said Edward Henry, "as we're on the subject, I like your shirt-front."
Carlo Trent was wearing a soft shirt. The other three shirts were all rigidly starched. Hitherto Edward Henry had imagined that a fashionable evening shirt should be, before aught else, bullet-proof. He now appreciated the distinction of a frilled and gently flowing breast-plate, especially when a broad purple eyeglass ribbon wandered across it. Rose Euclid gazed in modest transport at Carlo's chest.
"The colour," Carlo proceeded, ignoring Edward Henry's compliment, "the colour is inspiring. So is the texture. I have a woman's delight in textures. I could certainly produce better hexameters in such a dressing-gown."
Although Edward Henry, owing to an unfortunate hiatus in his education, did not know what a hexameter might be, he was artist enough to comprehend the effect of attire on creative work, for he had noticed that he himself could make more money in one necktie than in another, and he would instinctively take particular care in the [100] morning choice of a cravat on days when he meditated a great coup.
"Why don't you get one?" Marrier suggested.
"Do you really think I could?" asked Carlo Trent, as if the possibility were shimmering far out of his reach like a rainbow.
"Rather!" smiled Harrier. "I don't mind laying a fiver that Mr. Machin's dressing-gown came from Drook's in Old Bond Street." But instead of saying "Old" he said "Ehoold."