Ambrose looked at my feet, then at the feet of my companion, and then without more ado got into a pair of slippers. He wore knickerbockers and stockings, and his legs had a classic refinement that erred, if at all, on the side of over-slenderness. The effect of the enormous grey slippers at the end of these Attic legs made me, for one awful moment, feel as though I were going to shriek with laughter. An immense effort strangled the shriek and left me unnaturally solemn.
Mrs. Harvey-Browne had now caught sight of the row of slippers. She put up her eyeglasses and examined them carefully. 'How very German,' she remarked.
'Put them on, mother,' said Ambrose; 'we are all waiting for you.'
'Are they new, Brosy?' she asked, hesitating.
'The lady must put on the slippers, or she cannot enter the princely apartments,' said the custodian severely.
'Must I really, Brosy?' she inquired, looking extremely unhappy. 'I am so terribly afraid of infection, or—or other things. Do they think we shall spoil their carpets?'
'The floors are polished, I imagine,' said Ambrose, 'and the owner is probably afraid the visitors might slip and hurt themselves.'
'Really quite nice and considerate of him—if only they were new.'
Ambrose shuffled to the end of the row in his and took up two.' Look here, mother,' he said, bringing them to her, 'here's quite a new pair. Never been worn before. Put them on—they can't possibly do any harm.'
They were not new, but Mrs. Harvey-Browne thought they were and consented to put them on. The instant they were on her feet, stretching out in all their hugeness far beyond the frills of her skirt and obliging her to slide instead of walk, she became gracious. The smile with which she slid past me was amiable as well as deprecatory. They had apparently reduced her at once to the level of other sinful mortals. This effect seemed to me so subtle that again I fell a-pondering.