Each was of great price. And there were thousands of
them. They were as cheap as periwinkles. George thought: "This is
Paris."
He said aloud:
"Seems to be a fine lot of new clothes knocking about."
Evidently for Lois his tone was too impressed, not sufficiently casual.
She replied in her condescending manner, which he detested:
"My poor George, considering that this is the opening of the spring
season, and the place where all the new spring fashions are tried
out--what did you expect?"
The dolt had not known that he was assisting at a solemnity recognized
as such by experts throughout the clothed world. But Lois knew all those
things. She herself was trying out a new toilette, for which doubtless
Irene Wheeler was partly sponsor. She could hold her own on the terraces
with the rest. She was staggeringly different now from the daughter of
the simple home in the Rue d'Athenes.
The eyes of the splendid women aroused George's antipathy, because he
seemed to detect antipathy in them--not against himself but against the
male in him. These women, though by their glances they largely
mistrusted and despised each other, had the air of having combined
sexually against a whole sex. The situation was very contradictory. They
had beautified and ornamented themselves in order to attract a whole
sex, and yet they appeared to resent the necessity and instinct to
attract.
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