The young flappers were no doubt better engaged.

* * * * *

PINK GEORGETTE.

Joyce, at breakfast that morning, had announced firmly that if I
really loved her I would take the pattern up to town with me and "see
what I could do." What she failed to realise was that, if I ventured
alone into the midst of so intimately feminine a world as Bibby and
Renns' for the purpose of matching stuff called Pink Georgette, I
should become practically incapable of doing anything at all.

The only redeeming feature about the whole nerve-racking business was
that he found me as soon as he did.

"Good afternoon, Sir," he said in a most ingratiating voice. "What can
we have the pleasure of showing you, Sir?"

He was tall and handsome, with a perfectly waxed moustache and a
faultless frock-coat. He bowed before me with a sort of solicitous
curve to his broad shoulders, and the way he massaged one hand with
the other had a highly soothing effect.

"Pink georgette, Sir? Certainly, Sir." To my inexpressible relief he
seemed to consider it the most likely request in the world.

A moment before I had been drifting hopelessly, in a state of most
acute self-consciousness. But with him to guide me I set off quite