Page:Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory, 1922.djvu/235

The Secret Glory the black cat was awaiting them with an expression which was pleased and pious, too; he had devoured the greater portion of that quarter-pound of dubious butter. Ambrose smoked black cigarettes in bed till the packet was finished.

III

It was an amazing week they spent in London. For a couple of days Nelly was busied in getting "things" and "odds and ends," and, to her credit, she dressed the part most admirably. She abjured all the imperial purples, the Mediteranean blues, the shrieking lilacs that her class usually affects, and appeared at last a model of neat gaiety.

In the meantime, while these shopping expeditions were in progress, while Nelly consulted with those tall, dark-robed, golden-haired and awful Elegances which preside over the last mysteries of the draper and milliner, Ambrose sat at home in Little Russell Row and worked out the outlines of some fantasies that had risen in his mind. It was, in fact, during these days that he made the notes which were afterwards expanded into the curious Defence of Taverns, a book which is now rare and sought after by collectors. It is supposed that it was this work that was in poor 219