If they recognized the work, tracing the owner home should be very easy, he thought.
He took the gloves also, but like the dress, they had no mark that would assist him in his search.
After trying several glove stores he abandoned this as impracticable, for no one claimed the gloves as having been bought from them, and even if they had known the gloves were from their stock, it would have been impossible to tell who bought them.
Carefully he made a tour of the fashionable dressmakers. He felt dreadfully embarrassed as he entered the different establishments with the large parcel in his arms. The women in waiting, as well as the women customers, looked at him curiously, and when he asked, in a hesitating way, to see the proprietor or the forewoman, he could hardly endure the amused smiles of those who were eagerly listening to hear him state his business.
He thought all sorts of things which made him uncomfortable. First, the idea came to him that they would think he had brought a dress to be made to wear in amateur theatricals, or at a masquerade. But that was not half as bad as to imagine they thought he had a wife who was displeased with a dress which she had returned by him.
The worst part of all was, when he showed the crumpled gown to the persons in charge and inquired if they had made it, to have them first show surprise at the unusual proceeding, then quiet indignation when they found that if Richard had a secret concerning the gown he meant to keep it, and when he guarded well his reasons for such a strange visit they bowed him out with such an air of injured dignity that Richard felt very small and unhappy.
There were a few that instead of assuming an injured air, laughed at Richard, and one familiarly asked him if his wife refused to tell where she got it.
The majority of the dressmakers denied the gown so emphatically that Richard began to have a dim idea that the workmanship was not so fine as had been thought and that the dress had come from a humbler shop. He, not being a woman, did not know that one dressmaker never saw any good in another dressmaker’s work.
When he reached the last establishment of any note and importance it was almost dinner time. There were no customers about, and the employees were making preparations for closing the shop. A girl came forward and politely asked Richard his business.
He told her he wished to see whoever had charge of the place. Requesting him to be seated she left soon to return with a man.