disguises?" My embarrassment was so great that my
discourteous question may be pardoned.

"Our dress! Surely you have seen women rationally dressed before!" Miss
Brande answered complacently, while the other girl watched my
astonishment with evident amusement.

This second girl, Edith Metford, was a frank, handsome young woman, but
unlike the spirituelle beauty of Natalie Brande. She was perceptibly
taller than her friend, and of fuller figure. In consequence, she
looked, in my opinion, to even less advantage in her eccentric costume,
or rational dress, than did Miss Brande.

"Rationally dressed! Oh, yes. I know the divided skirt, but--"

Miss Metford interrupted me. "Do you call the divided skirt atrocity
rational dress?" she asked pointedly.

"Upon my honour I do not," I answered.

These girls were too advanced in their ideas of dress for me. Nor did I
feel at all at my ease during this conversation, which did not, however,
appear to embarrass them. I proposed hastily to get a cab, but they
demurred. It was such a lovely day, they preferred to walk, part of the
way at least. I pointed out that there might be drawbacks to this
amendment of my proposal.

"What drawbacks?" Miss Metford asked.

"For instance, isn't it probable we shall all be arrested by the
police?" I replied.

"Rubbish! We are not in Russia," both exclaimed.

"Which is lucky for you," I reflected, as we commenced what was to me a
most disagreeable walk. I got them into a cab sooner than they wished.
At the railway station I did not offer to procure their tickets. To do
so, I felt, would only give offence. Critical glances followed us as we
went to our carriage. Londoners are becoming accustomed to varieties, if
not vagaries, in ladies' costumes, but the dress of my friends was
evidently a little out of the common even for them. Miss Metford was
just turning the handle of a carriage door, when I interposed, saying,
"This is a smoking compartment."

"So I see. I am going to smoke--if you don't object?"

"I don't suppose it would make any difference if I did," I said, with
unconscious asperity, for indeed this excess of free manners was jarring
upon me. The line dividing it from vulgarity was becoming so thin I was
losing sight of the divisor. Yet no one, even the most fastidious,
could associate vulgarity with Natalie Brande. There remained an air of
unassumed sincerity about herself and all her actions, including even
her dress, which abso