"I think I'll wait for my dress." However, she had not to wait, for Old Mole gave the story to Robert, who, with a nice sense of the fitness of things, told his sister that he wished to buy a dress for a friend of his, and, armed with her introduction, he and Matilda went and ordered a gown at an establishment even more exclusive than that in Albemarle Street. This establishment was so select that only the most indubitably married or otherwise guaranteed ladies were served; one there obtained the French style without the suspicion of French Frenchness. The quarrel blew over, but the sensibilities of both were rasped, and they were cautious and wary with one another, which is perhaps the greatest trial of the blessed state of matrimony. He labored to be just to her, to endeavor to understand her. She was, he confessed, in a difficult position, lifted above her kind--though it was inconceivable that she could ever have met the fate or assumed the condition of her sister, Mrs. Boothroyd--and not adopted into his. He was self-outlawed, driven out of the common mind of his class, and, so far as he could see, of his country, into his own, and therein he had as yet discovered no habitation, not even a site whereon to build. She could not share his adventures and sorrows, and, except himself and Robert, had no companionship. He asked her if she had no acquaintance in London, and she confessed to the "second girl," Milly Dufresne. He proposed that she should ask Miss Dufresne to dinner to provide the occasion for the wearing of her new gown. She said she did not suppose he would care for Miss Dufresne, but he protested that her friends were of course his and he was only too delighted that she had a companion of her own sex and age. The day was fixed (her birthday), the dinner ordered and arranged, a man hired for the evening to do the waiting. Without a word being said, it was assumed that there should be the ceremony due to the necklace and the French (style) gown.