Distancewise, I only had to walk a few steps before arriving at the place purported to be the home of our Miss L. By then it was quite clear what I would find. There were no surprises so far. When I looked up at the neon-inscribed name of the shop, I heard a young woman’s telephone voice whispering the words into my ear: Mademoiselle Fashions. And this is the store—n’est-ce pas?—where it seems you acquire so many of your own lovely ensembles. But I’m jumping ahead with my expectations. What I did not expect were the sheer lengths to which you would go in order to fire up my sense of strange
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