“You were exercising, I see,” said the lady.
“Yes,” he replied; “I was playing peacock, and allowed myself to be surprised.”
The lady laughed, and continued:
“Your concierge's lodge was vacant, and as I know you are always alone at this hour I came up without being announced.”
He looked at her.
“Heavens, how beautiful you are! What chic!”
“Yes, I have a new frock. Do you think it pretty?”
“Charming, and perfectly harmonious. We can certainly say that nowadays it is possible to give expression to the lightest textiles.”
He walked around her, gently touching the material of the gown, adjusting its folds with the tips of his fingers, like a man that knows a woman's toilet as the modiste knows it, having all his life employed his artist's taste and his athlete's muscles in depicting with slender brush changing and delicate fashions, in revealing feminine grace enclosed within a prison of velvet and silk, or hidden by snowy laces. He finished his scrutiny by declaring: “It is a great success, and it becomes you perfectly!”
The lady allowed herself to be admired, quite content to be pretty and to please him.