Black humor; City and town life -- Fiction; Intellectuals -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Satire
Two hundred and thirteen Sloane Street. The address, Rosie reflected, as
she vaporized synthetic lilies of the valley over all her sinuous
person, was decidedly a good one. It argued a reasonable prosperity,
attested a certain distinction. The knowledge of his address confirmed
her already high opinion of the bearded stranger who had so surprisingly
entered her life, as though in fulfilment of all the fortune-tellers’
prophecies that ever were made; had entered, yes, and intimately made
himself at home. She had been delighted, when the telegram came that
morning, to think that at last she was going to find out something more
about this man of mystery. For dark and mysterious he had remained,
remote even in the midst of the most intimate contacts. Why, she didn’t
even know his name. “Call me Toto,” he had suggested, when she asked him
what it was. And Toto she had had to call him, for lack of anything more
definite or committal. But to-day he was letting her further into his
secret. Rosie was delighted. Her pink underclothing, she decided, as she
looked in the long glass, was really ravishing. She examined herself,
turning first one way, then the other, looking over her shoulder to see
the effect from behind. She pointed a toe, bent and straightened a knee,
applauding the length of her legs (“Most women,” Toto had said, “are
like dachshunds”), their slenderness and plump suavity of form. In their
white stockings of Milanese silk they looked delicious; and how
marvellously, by the way, those Selfridge people had mended those
stockings by their new patent process! Absolutely like new, and only
charged four shillings. Well, it was time to dress. Good-bye, then, to
the pink underclothing and the long white legs. She opened the wardrobe
door. The moving glass reflected, as it swung through its half-circle,
pink bed, rose-wreathed walls, little friends of her own age, and the
dying saint at his last communion. Rosie selected the frock she had
bought the other day at one of those little shops in Soho, there they
sell such smart things so cheaply to a clientage of minor actresses and
cocottes. Toto hadn’t seen it yet. She looked extremely distinguished in
it. The little hat, with its inch of veil hanging like a mask,
unconcealing and inviting, from the brim, suited her to perfection. One
last dab of powder, one last squirt of synthetic lilies of the valley,
and she was ready. She closed the door behind her. St. Jerome was left
to communicate in the untenanted pinkness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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