Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/231

 something to enhance what will always be the most dignified dress in the world. Repose. . . Distinction. And then, at the door, an invading army! Men I had never seen before, some in uniform, some in those detestable little jackets and limp, pleated shirts ; flushed, dishevelled. . . And all of them unknown to me as the man in the moon! The princess, perhaps you know, abominates the smell of tobacco; need I say that a positive cloud of smoke was bursting in from the stair-case? . . . If it had been the men alone, I could have borne it. Somehow one would have carried it off. . . I made my way, through this sea of strange faces, to the door—and I really believe that, if I had found the Jacquerie in possession, I could hardly have been more astounded. With the men there were girls, scores and scores of them, surging up to the door, lolling about on the stairs, smoking cigarettes in the hall, powdering their horrible little noses. One glance was enough. . . The dresses alone—skirts that hardly reached their knees, bodices that hardly reached their waists, “the shoe and shoulder-strap brigade”, as my boy calls them. A reek of powder and cheap scent. . . “What,” I said, “what have I done to deserve this?”

You would think that my cross was