He passed a quiet evening in the Albany (Uncle Wilkie had slipped over to Ostend for the spring races) and next morning found him out and about in Jermyn Street, still undecided, but toying gracefully with a beautiful idea.
“Do you know Calypso’s isle, Prospero’s principality?” he asked the favoured hairdresser to whom he entrusted himself for daily face-massage. “One lies there, you know, on banks of moly, and eats, in lieu of the lotus, the ’khàsscheesh of blank oblivion and the snowy powder of the χοχαινὴ.”
“Yes, m’sieur,” said the barber absently.
“Good,” said Gav. “My favourite emperor and my favourite novelist both elected it as a dwelling-place.”
“I read much of Victor Hugo myself, sir,” said the barber, removing a steaming towel.
“No, no. I meant Capri, not Herm.”
“Quite, m’sieur,” said the barber, applying another.
Pleased with the incident, Gav tipped the fellow with characteristic bravura, and commenced his daily emplettes, as he did not hesitate to call them. That morning saw him in all the most exclusive shops in Town. Perfume he bought in Victoria Street and jewels in the busy Strand; the choice of some new hats kept him for a while in Holborn, but soon he was browsing among the bookshops of Villiers Street. At Owen’s (lest he decide upon Afric adventures) he ordered tropical silks, and (against his wooing the icy mountains of Greenland) he chose marvellous furs at Moss Bros. Extenuate at long last with so much purchasing, he refreshed himself with a light luncheon at one of his clubs, the Times Book, and then taxied to his favourite Turkish Bath, situated, like his barber, in Jermyn Street.