Otherwise she was an exquisite French doll in knee-skirts and sash and all over pale blue ribbons.
"I'm going to have a good time if I do murder to-morrow, Michael. Do you like my costume? Really? That is so sweet of you! You always are the most satisfactory of men! And you should see Clelia! She's like me only her ribbons and sash are primrose. She is really charming."
"Thusis," said I, "you and Clelia shall sit at table and Smith and I are going to turn waiters! No!" as she exclaimed in protest, "let's be logical in our grotesqueries! This little world of ours here in Schwindlewald is already absurd enough with you and Clelia waiting on table. Let's turn it completely upside down and stand it on its head."
She finally consented, forced by my gay ardour, and, I think, mischievously pleased at the prospect of protest from the Queen.
All over the house, now, I could hear snatches of loud laughter as my Teutonic guests began to gather and visit one another in their costumes. Thusis fled; and I opened the door and broke the news to Smith.
"Get into your evening duds," I added, "and announce dinner. We're all going stark mad and I'm glad of it."
So I dressed, and found him ready when I was; and we went downstairs into the large lounging room where Raoul was fitting disks into the music-box.
He laughed when we told him our intentions, and then we went into the kitchen and informed Josephine Vannis. That stately Juno condescended to smile on us. She was rather tremendously imposing as a baby with bonnet and stick-out skirts—as though somebody had decked out a masterpiece of Praxiteles.
Retiring, Smith murmured: "Only the Parthenon possesses such awe-inspiring symmetry; only the Acropolis could vie with her. Did you ever see such superb underpinning in all your life?"
Stunned by such stupendous symmetry I admitted that I never had. And we went away to announce dinner.