Then she and two girls wearing fashionable frocks and fashionable hair
came in and did things to a corset they laced on me that I can't even
write down, for I didn't understand the process, but when I looked in
that long glass I almost dropped on the floor. I wasn't tight and I
wasn't stiff, and I looked--I'm too modest to write how lovely I really
looked to myself. I was spellbound with delight.

Next I signed the cheque for three of those wonders with my head so in
the clouds I didn't know what I was doing, but I came to with a jolt
when the prettiest girl began to get me into that black silk bag I had
worn down to the West End. I must have shrunk the whole remaining pounds
I had felt obliged to lose for Alfred and Ruth Clinton, from the horror
I felt when I looked at myself. The girl was really sympathetic and said
with a smile that was true kindness: "Shall I call a taxi for madame and
have it take her to Klein's? They have wonderful gowns by Rene all ready
to be fitted at short notice. Really, madame's figure is such that it
commands a perfect costume now."

Men do business well, but when women enter the field they are geniuses
at money extracting. I felt myself already clothed perfectly when that
girl said my figure "commanded" a proper dress. Of course, Klein pays
Madame Courtier a commission for the customers she passes on to him.
The one for me must have looked to her like a big transaction.

I spent three days at the great Klein establishment, only going to the
hotel to sleep, and most of the time I forgot to eat. Madame Rene must
have been Madame Courtier's twin sister in youth, and Madame Telliers in
the hat department was the triplet to them both. When women have genius
it breaks out all over them like measles, and they never recover from