“I went out to get you these—do wear them.” She looked magnificent, he thought; a conqueror. Under Maddison’s guidance she had cultivated her innate taste for Oriental color and magnificence; gold and silver embroideries, touches of brilliant flaming orange and scarlet seemed to defy, but in reality enhanced, the splendid richness of her red-gold hair. She stood before West in a strange greenish-blue cloak, with heavy gold tassels and braid and with a hoodlike drapery of sable round her shoulders. An antique Oriental silver comb, studded with green and blue stones, held her hair. “How strange,” he said, as she fastened the flowers in the corsage of her amber gown, “how strange! If I’d known what you were going to put on, I couldn’t have chosen the flowers better.” “There’s one great pull you women have over us,” West said, as he looked round the restaurant with its over-gorgeous gilding and its over-fed crowd of men and women, “you can dress; men merely wear clothes. Just look at all these silly black coats and blank white shirt fronts. What a difference it would make if we weren’t afraid of colors and dressed for effect!” “It tempts women to wear what doesn’t suit them, though.” “Either you’re not tempted, or you’re very clever and strong-minded. Brave too—there are not many who could stand those colors you have, and no one else I know who could wear them as if any other colors would be wrong. You forget that among my many businesses I’m a man milliner. It’s the most difficult job I’ve had to run that department. Men are easy enough to content, no matter what they want to buy—clothes, cigars, wine; they’ve no scope for choice, it’s just a question of good or bad; but women—and dresses! My goodness! Now, I wonder if your taste in dinners is—well, I was going to say as good as your taste in dress, but what I really mean is—the same as mine. No soup; just fish, a bird and a sweet and one wine?” “I’m not going to give myself away. You’re my host; the guests don’t choose but take. But I’ll tell you candidly afterward whether I’ve enjoyed it or not. Unless you’d rather I’d say nice things whether I mean them or not.” He laughed. “It’s difficult to know—difficult to choose between pretty insincerity or candid—cold water.” “I should have thought you would always choose candor.” “Why?” “A woman’s why; I’ve no reason, but I sort of feel it. Aren’t I right?” “Do you really expect me to answer—candidly? To confess being fond of being humbugged, or to tell a story and say I like candor always? Of course I don’t; I like being made a fool of, so now you know and can act accordingly.” “I? You’ve handicapped me. It’s no fun being humbugged when you know it, is it?”