GEORGE.
CHAPTER VIII
CARRINGTON MEWS,
SHEPHERD MARKET,
6th December.
DEAR Agatha,—Mrs. Darling has announced that she doesn't want to go to any more dead people's houses. She says they give her a "nasty, sleepy feelin'". She is, moreover, of the opinion that, in these days, when living people can't get homes, it's downright wicked to waste bricks and mortar on ghosts.
She said she wanted to go to St. Paul's Churchyard to see the shops, and in a moment of weak amiability I consented to accompany her. If my good nature had stopped at that point all would have been well, but putting on the brakes halfway down hill is a thing I've never been able to accomplish, and I was lured into a draper's to help the old lady choose a blouse for Christmas.
I had never in my most imaginative moments thought of Mrs. D. as a vain woman, but her conduct over the purchase of that blouse was a revelation! If she looked at one she looked at twenty; moreover, she insisted on trying some of them on with disastrous results. Blouses that looked quite attractive off, assumed a curious appearance of bodginess when on. The little minx who served us could, I suspect, have explained the reason. I could only grope for it whilst I watched Mrs. D., with the help of the little minx, push a fat arm clothed in a cloth sleeve into another sleeve composed of gossamer fabric which the assistant called "Georgette"!
"It's too tight," said Mrs. D. "'Tisn't my colour neither. 'Aven't you got somethink in a red silk, with a bit er lace on it?"
At this moment I became conscious of a perfume with familiar associations, and some one put a hand on my sleeve from behind. "George!" Then a laugh—you know Katherine's laugh. It used to be one of her assets, but there's a thin note in it now which betrays her age. "You look so absurd," said she. "What are you doing?"