"And wear your best coat and skirt; and if it is fine you can wear that blue velour hat that has just come in, but don't put any pins in it," said Madame. "I can't have people carrying my boxes and going to the Savoy looking anyhow."
Madame's boxes are French grey with bunches of cherries on them, tied with gay cherry ribbons, and "Cherry" written across. They are a part of her general scheme.
I had one of them on my arm when I went to the Savoy.
I like the Savoy; it never smells foody, and the orchestra chats to itself instead of shouting at you. I like an orchestra that chats to itself, and then you can talk without feeling you oughtn't to.
I was very, very tired, and I did feel an awful alien in that place. It's not personality or breeding that makes you feel at home in big restaurants and hotels—it's just clothes. It doesn't matter if you've given your twelve country seats to the country for hospitals, and you've got the newest thing in Rolls Royce's nestling on the kerb outside; if you've got the wrong clothes on you feel as out-of-place and insignificant as a flapper at a silver wedding.
I found the right suite and delivered the box; an ecstatic young woman rushed out in a violet kimona with black storks on it. I think my appearance rather nonplussed her, it's horribly embarrassing to wear decently cut clothes sometimes.
"Are you Madame Cherry's daughter?" she said. "Well—it's frightfully decent of you to bring it—er—will you have a cocktail or anything?"
I went down the lift with a huge box of Fuller's chocolates tucked under my arm.
I adore Fuller's chocolates.
As I stepped out of the lift at the bottom someone grasped my arm and said: