"You clever boy! Then you've found out already that there are two different kinds of love of dress--the false kind, which thinks it's all right when it buys pretty things and hangs them on itself, and the true kind, which carefully chooses every shade of colour and every bit of material to be a frame and set-off for the wearer's particular sort of good looks. You've got the insight to see that what looks like a bit of brown holland when laid on a bed or hung on a peg may make a woman lovely enough to turn men's heads, while a confection that has cost a hundred guineas may leave everybody cold. You've only got to look around here to see that it is not the clothes that matter, but the human flesh and blood inside them. Why, one of our greatest society beauties once went through a London season with only two frocks to her name--one for day, one for evening, and both black. And yet she outshone everybody else." We were going into the concert hall and there the figure of Death seemed to me more hideously clear than anywhere else. But I said nothing to Little Yeogh Wough of this curious oppression that was upon me. He was shyly proud of having had many prizes, and I went on talking lightly, very low, as we waited for the concert to begin. "I think you'll know enough about women to be able to judge them well for yourself when you grow up. Look at that girl in the front row of seats with all sorts of bits of chiffon and odd ribbons about her. She has changed her position five times since we came in, trying to put herself so that everybody coming up the middle of the hall shall take notice of her. And do you see how she keeps on touching her bits of ribbon and chiffon--pulling them out or patting them down? Well, that's the kind of girl you must avoid when you're grown up. She's a prinker, and a prinker is horrible. You see, you can be quite sure even before looking at her face that she isn't very pretty, because a very pretty woman doesn't need to prink in order to try to attract notice. She attracts it too much. She would rather escape it if she could. So, when you grow up, Little Yeogh Wough, you must find a girl whose lovely head and full throat rise best from out a plain linen collar. You must avoid prinkers, just as a woman looking for a husband ought to avoid a doxer." "Whatever is a doxer?" "A doxer's generally a man--a man who smiles too agreeably and moves his head and body about in a funny way directly he gets among strangers. But never mind the doxers or the prinkers, either. I want to listen to this piece by Sibelius." The strange fear of the future clutched at my throat more and more. It got to be almost more than I could bear when a little later the most spirited of the school songs swelled into the air, sung by scores of voices: "Jolly, oh, jolly at eve...." A sob rose up within me and it was only with difficulty that I forced it back. "What's the matter, Big Yeogh Wough?" whispered the boy beside me.