I will not deny that I expended the most elaborate pains on my toilet
that afternoon, before waiting upon Mrs Clyde in accordance with my
promise to Min. I did not otherwise comply fully with the essential
requirements of Madame la Comtesse de Bassanville's _Code Complet du
Ceremonial_--such as causing an influential friend, who could speak of
my morals and position, to have a previous audience with "the
responsible relation" of "the young person who had attracted my notice;"
nor, did I don a pair of "light fresh-butter-coloured kid gloves."
Still, I undoubtedly betrayed a considerable nicety of apparel all the
same.
Indeed, I absolutely out-Hornered Horner; and, had anybody detected me
when engaged in the mysteries of the dressing-room, I would certainly
have been supposed to have been as anxiously considerate respecting the
choice I should make between light trousers and dark, a black coat and a
blue one, and whether I would wear a white waistcoat or not, as a young
lady costuming herself for a ball, and debating with her maid the rival
merits of blush roses and pink silk, or of white tarlatan and clematis.
It was, also, some time ere I could summon up enough resolution to knock
at the door of Mrs Clyde's residence, when, my decorative preparations
accomplished, I at length succeeded in getting round to her house.
The expedition strangely reminded me of a visit I was once forced to pay
to a dentist, owing to the misdeeds of one of my best molars; the dread
of the impending interview almost inducing me to turn back on the
threshold and put off my painful purpose for a while--even as had been
my course of procedure when calling at Signor Odonto's agonising
establishment. On that occasion, I remember, I recoiled in fright from
the dreaded ordeal, seeking refuge in "instant flight."
I could not do so now, however. I had promised Min to speak to her
mother as soon as possible; and, independently of that engagement, the
interview would have to be gone through sooner or later, at all hazards.
"An' it were done quickly, it were well done;" so, at last, my
hesitation passed away under the influence of this, really vital,
consideration. I nerved myself up to the knocking point. I gave a loud
rat, tat, tat! that thrilled through my very boots, causing a passing
butcher's boy, awed by its important sound, to inquire, with the cynical
empressement of his race, whether I thought myself the "Emperoar of
Rooshia." I turned my back on him with contempt; but, his ribald remark
made me feel all the more nervous.
"Mrs Clyde at home?" I asked of the handmaiden, who answered my
summons.
Yes, Mrs Clyde was at home.
Would I walk in?