Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/218

 *neither the toilette nor the sensational title suited her. But perhaps the "Cult of Chiffon" presented the most varied and startling phases to a properly receptive mind. Thus it ran:

THE CULT OF CHIFFON

The Dirge O'er the Death of Pleasure The Fire Motif The Meaning of Life is Clear Moss and Starlight Incessant Soft Desire A Frenzied Song of Amorous Things A Summer Night Has a Thousand Powers

Faint gigglings shook the bosoms of the profane as the "Incessant Soft Desire" glided into view, followed by "A Frenzied Song of Amorous Things,"—indeed it would have been positively unnatural and inhuman had no one laughed. Curious to relate, there were quite a large number of "gentlemen" at this remarkable exhibition of feminine clothes, many of them well known and easily recognizable. Certain flaneurs of Bond Street, various loafers familiar to the Carlton "lounge," and celebrated Piccadilly-trotters, formed nearly one half of the audience, and stared with easy insolence at the "Red Mouth of a Venomous Flower" or smiled suggestively at "Incessant Soft Desire." They were invited to stare and smile, and they did it. But there was something remarkably offensive in their way of doing it, and perhaps if a few thick boots worn on the feet of rough but honest workmen had come into contact with their smooth personalities on their way out of Madame Modiste's establishment, it might have done them good and taught