Explore "The Story of Fifine" by Bernard Capes on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I had Fifine's figure in my mind's eye as I made my purchases. The practice of mentally revisualising things once seen left me in no doubt as to its proportions. It was somewhat developed for a girl of nineteen, but I had reason to believe that a certain precosity was not suggested in her shape alone. There was a hint also of mental ripeness beyond her years, oddly irreconcilable with the passive front she maintained -- a readiness of retort which I had found exhilarating, and hoped yet to provoke to my greater confusion and diversion.
The young ladies of the Magasin du Louvre made themselves very merry over my commission. I thought it best to confide one section of Fifine's list to the expert judgment of the lingerie department, with directions only that the articles specified were to be of the best. The dresses, the stockings and the shoes, with some small fanciful accessories, I made it my own business to select. After all, a Frenchman would do these things unabashed, so why should I demur.