I summoned Carlotta.
“Carlotta,” I said, “I am going to take you to Hyde Park and show you the English aristocracy wearing their best clothes and their best behaviour. You must do the same.”
“My best clothes?” cried Carlotta, her face lighting up.
“Your very best. Make haste.”
I smiled. She ran from the room and in an incredibly short time reappeared unblushingly bare-necked and bare-armed in the evening dress that had caused her such dismay on Saturday.
I jumped to my feet. There is no denying that she looked amazingly beautiful. She looked, in fact, disconcertingly beautiful. I found it hard to tell her to take the dress off again.
“Is it wrong?” she asked Nvith a pucker of her baby lips.
“Yes, indeed,” said I. “People would be shocked.”
“But on Saturday evening—” she began.
“I know, my child,” I interrupted. “In society you are scarcely respectable unless you go about half naked at night; but to do so in the daytime would be the grossest indecency. I’ll explain some other time.”