“You’ll excuse me,” Reggie added, “if I get ready.  I have an engagement.”  And he turned to his dressing-table, which was covered with an array of cosmetics and perfumes, and proceeded, in a matter-of-fact way, to paint his face.  Meanwhile his valet was flitting silently here and there, getting ready his afternoon costume; and Montague, in spite of himself, followed the man with his eyes.  A haberdasher’s shop might have been kept going for quite a while upon the contents of Reggie’s dressers.  His clothing was kept in a room adjoining the dressing-room; Montague, who was near the door, could see the rosewood wardrobes, each devoted to a separate article of clothing-shirts, for instance, laid upon sliding racks, tier upon tier of them, of every material and colour.  There was a closet fitted with shelves and equipped like a little shoe store—­high shoes and low shoes, black ones, brown ones, and white ones, and each fitted over a last to keep its shape perfect.  These shoes were all made to order according to Reggie’s designs, and three or-four times a year there was a cleaning out, and those which had gone out of fashion became the prey of his “man.”  There was a safe in one closet, in which Reggie’s jewellery was kept.

The dressing-room was furnished like a lady’s boudoir, the furniture upholstered with exquisite embroidered silk, and the bed hung with curtains of the same material.  There was a huge bunch of roses on the centre-table, and the odour of roses hung heavy in the room.

The valet stood at attention with a rack of neckties, from which Reggie critically selected one to match his shirt.  “Are you going to take Alice with you down to the Havens’s?” he was asking; and he added, “You’ll meet Vivie Patton down there—­she’s had another row at home.”

“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Oliver.

“Yes,” said the other.  “Frank waited up all night for her, and he wept and tore his hair and vowed he would kill the Count.  Vivie told him to go to hell.”

“Good God!” said Oliver.  “Who told you that?”

“The faithful Alphomse,” said Reggie, nodding toward his valet.  “Her maid told him.  And Frank vows he’ll sue—­I half expected to see it in the papers this morning.”

“I met Vivie on the street yesterday,” said Oliver.  “She looked as chipper as ever.”

Reggie shrugged his shoulders.  “Have you seen this week’s paper?” he asked.  “They’ve got another of Ysabel’s suppressed poems in.”—­And then he turned toward Montague to explain that “Ysabel” was the pseudonym of a young debutante who had fallen under the spell of Baudelaire and Wilde, and had published a volume of poems of such furious eroticism that her parents were buying up stray copies at fabulous prices.

Then the conversation turned to the Horse Show, and for quite a while they talked about who was going to wear what.  Finally Oliver rose, saying that they would have to get a bite to eat before leaving for the Havens’s.  “You’ll have a good time,” said Reggie.  “I’d have gone myself, only I promised to stay and help Mrs. de Graffenried design a dinner.  So long!”