“Two hundred and fifty—and they are a bargain. You’re not shocked, are you?”
“Well, come and look at them—what’s the time? Half past ten.” She led the way upstairs.
On the first landing she turned to the left, opened a door and disclosed a bed-room where a maid was moving about arranging things and unpacking boxes.
A large cardboard box lay open on the floor, it was filled with snow white lingerie. The instinct to bolt came upon Jones so strongly that he might have obeyed it, only for the hand upon his arm pressing him down into a chair.
“Anne,” said the Countess of Rochester, “bring out my new evening gowns, I want to show them.”
Then she turned to the cardboard box. “Here’s some more of my extravagance. I couldn’t resist them, Venetia nearly had a fit when she saw the bill—Look!”
She exhibited frilled and snow white things, delicate and diaphanous and fit to be worn by angels. Then the dresses arrived, and were laid out on the bed and inspected. There was a black gown and a grey gown and a confection in pale blue. If Jones had been asked to price them he would have said a hundred dollars. Like most men he was absolutely unconscious of the worth of a woman’s dress. To a woman a Purdy and a ten guinea Birmingham gun are just the same, and to a man, a ten guinea Bayswater dress is little different, if worn by a pretty girl, from a seventy guinea Bond Street—is it Bond Street—rig out. Unless he is a man milliner.
Jones said “beautiful,” gave the palm to the blue, and watched them carried off again by the maid.
He had left his cigarettes down stairs; there were some in a box on a table, she made him take one and lit it for him, then she disappeared into a room adjoining, returning in a few minutes dressed in a kimono covered with golden swallows and followed by the maid. Then she took her seat before a great mirror and the maid began to take down her hair and brush it.