The Courtship of Morrice Buckler by A.E.W. Mason

THE next morning, and while I was still in bed drinking a cup of chocolate, came Elmscott's servant to me, and under his guidance I set forth to purchase such apparel as would enable me to cut a more passable figure in the eyes of Countess Lukstein. Seldom, I think, had the shop keepers a customer so nice and difficult to please. Here the wares were too plain and insignificant; there too gaudy and pretentious, for while I was resolved to go no longer dressed like a Quaker, I was in no way minded to ape the extravagance of my lord Culverton. At last I determined upon a dozen suits, rich but of a sober colour, and being measured for them, went from the tailor's to the hosier's, shoemaker's, lace-merchant's, and I know not what other tradesmen. Muslin jabots, Holland shirts, ruffles of Medium and point de Venise, silk stockings, shoes with high red heels, which I needed particularly, for I was of no great stature, laced gloves--I bought enough, in truth, to make fins gentlemen of a company of soldiers.

Needless to say, when once my purchases were delivered at my lodging, I let no long time slip by before I repeated my visit to the house in Pall Mall. The Countess welcomed me with the same kindliness, so that I returned again and again. She distinguished me besides by displaying an especial interest not merely in my present comings and goings, but in the past history of my uneventful days. Surely there is no flattery in the world so potent and bewitching as the questions which a woman puts to a man concerning those years of his life which were spent before their paths had crossed. And if the history be dull as mine was, a trivial, homely record of common acts and thoughts, why, then the flattery is doubled. I know that it intoxicated me like a heady wine, and I almost dared to hope that she grudged the time during which we had been strangers.