“Any amount you want!” said Sophy, enthusiastically—“You must have proper clothes to travel in!”
“I must,” agreed Diana, with humorously dramatic emphasis. “I haven’t had any since I was ‘withdrawn’ from the matrimonial market for lack of bidders. Mother used to spend hundreds on me so long as there was any hope—I had the prettiest frocks, the daintiest hats,—and in these I ‘radiated’ at all the various shows,—Ranelagh, Hurlingham, Henley, Ascot, Goodwood,—how sick I used to be of it! But when these little crowsfeet round my eyes began to come”—and she touched her temples expressively—“then poor, disappointed Ma drew in the purse-strings. She found that very ‘young’ hats didn’t suit me—delicate sky-pinks and blues made me look sallow,—so she and Pa decided on giving me an ‘allowance’—too meagre to stand the cost of anything but the plainest garments—and—so, here I am! Pa says ‘only very young people should wear white’—but the vain old boy got himself up in white flannels the other day to play tennis and thought he looked splendid! But what’s the odds, so long as he’s happy!”
She laughed and turned to the mirror to complete her toilette, and in less than an hour’s time she and Sophy Lansing had finished their breakfast and were out together in Bond Street, exploring the mysteries of the newest Aladdin’s palace of elegant garments, where the perfect taste and deft fingers of practised Parisian fitters soon supplied all that was needed to suit Diana’s immediate requirements. At one very noted establishment, she slipped into a “model” gown of the finest navy serge, of a design and cut so admirable that the couturier could hardly be said to flatter when he declared that “Madame looked a princess in it.”
“Do princesses always look well?” she asked, with a quaint little uplifting of her eyebrows.
The great French tailor waved his hands expressively.
“Ah, Madame! It is a figure of speech!”
Diana laughed,—but she purchased the costume, Sophy whispering mysteriously in her ear: “Let us take it with us in the automobile! One never knows!—they might change it! And you’ll never get anything to suit you more perfectly.”
Miss Lansing was worldly-wise; she had not gained the reputation of being one of the best-dressed women in London without learning many little ins and outs of “model” gowns which are hidden from the profane. Many and many a time had she been “taken in,” on this deep question,—many a “model” had she chosen, leaving it to be sent home, and on receipt had found it to be only a clever “copy” which, on being tried on, had proved a misfit. And well she knew that complaint was useless, as the tailor or modiste who supplied the goods would surely prove a veritable Ananias in swearing that she had received the “model,” and the model only. On this occasion she had her way, and, despite the deprecating appeal of the couturier that he might be allowed to send it, the becoming costume was packed and placed safely in the automobile, and she and Diana drove off with it.
“You never could look better in anything!” declared Sophy. “Promise me you’ll wear it when you make your first call on Dr. Dimitrius!”
“But, my dear, it may be too much for him!” laughed Diana. “He wants ‘a courageous and determined woman of mature years,’—and so charming a Paris costume may not ‘dress’ the part!”