Lost on Dress Parade (Henry)
Short summary
New York City, early 1900s. Towers Chandler worked in an architect's office and earned eighteen dollars per week.
He saved one dollar each week, and every ten weeks he spent his savings on one elegant evening out, dressing in fine clothes and dining at expensive restaurants, pretending to be a wealthy man. On one such evening, he encountered a young woman who slipped on ice and injured her ankle.
Chandler helped her and invited her to dinner. During the meal, he boasted about his wealthy lifestyle, mentioning clubs, yachts, and high society. After dinner, they parted ways. The girl returned to her mansion, where her sister scolded her for going out disguised as a shopgirl. The girl explained that she wanted to experience life as an ordinary person. She told her sister about the kind of man she could love—someone with ambition and purpose, not an idle society man.
I could not love a man like that, even if his eyes were blue and he were ever so kind to poor girls whom he met in the street.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
Chandlers modest life and his weekly ritual of elegance
In his small hall bedroom, Towers Chandler pressed his evening suit, preparing for his special night out.
He worked in an architect's office and earned only eighteen dollars per week. Despite his modest income, Chandler had developed a ritual that brought him immense joy. From each week's earnings, he set aside one dollar. Every ten weeks, with the accumulated ten dollars, he purchased himself an evening of luxury and elegance. He dressed in fine evening clothes, ventured to the brightest and most fashionable quarter of the city, and dined with taste and sophistication.
With ten dollars a man may, for a few hours, play the wealthy idler to perfection. The sum is ample for a well–considered meal, a bottle bearing a respectable label...
These periodic evenings were a source of renewed bliss for Chandler. He moved up Broadway with the evening dress parade, both an exhibit and a gazer, savoring every moment of his brief transformation into a man of wealth and leisure.
An unexpected encounter and a dinner invitation
As Chandler walked through the fashionable district, contemplating which restaurant to choose, a girl suddenly slipped on a patch of icy snow at a corner and fell onto the sidewalk. He immediately helped her to her feet with courteous concern. The girl leaned against a building wall and thanked him, explaining that she thought her ankle was strained. Chandler offered to call a cab, but she politely declined, saying she would be able to walk in a moment or two.
Chandler found himself drawn to the girl. She was pretty in a refined way, with merry and kind eyes. Her inexpensive black dress suggested she was a working girl, and her cheap black straw hat was adorned only with a velvet ribbon. Despite her plain attire, she carried herself with dignity and spoke like a lady.
A sudden idea struck Chandler. His solitary feasts had always lacked one element—a lady's company. He decided to invite this girl to dine with him. He reasoned that working girls often waived formalities and were shrewd judges of character. His ten dollars would enable them both to dine well, and the experience would surely be wonderful for her. With frank gravity, he suggested that her foot needed more rest and invited her to join him for dinner. After a moment's hesitation about propriety and her plain dress, the girl accepted his invitation and introduced herself as Miss Marian.
The dinner and Chandlers pretense of wealth
Chandler led Miss Marian to a respectable restaurant in the next block. They were seated at a well-appointed table with attentive service. The restaurant had a good orchestra playing softly, and the cuisine was excellent. Miss Marian, despite her cheap clothing, held herself with natural grace and beauty. She looked at Chandler with something close to admiration in her charming face.
Then it was that the Madness of Manhattan, the frenzy of Fuss and Feathers, the Bacillus of Brag, the Provincial Plague of Pose seized upon Towers Chandler.
Surrounded by pomp and style on Broadway, Chandler felt compelled to play his assumed part perfectly. He began talking to Miss Marian about clubs, teas, golf, riding, kennels, cotillions, and tours abroad. He threw out hints about a yacht at Larchmont and mentioned names that were handled reverently by working people. He could see that she was impressed by his talk of wealth and leisure. Yet once or twice, he glimpsed the pure quality of this girl shining through the mist his egotism had created.
Miss Marian questioned the lifestyle he described, asking if it didn't sound futile and purposeless, and whether he had any work to do in the world that might interest him more. Chandler dismissed her concerns, claiming that the idle wealthy were actually the hardest workers, constantly dressing for dinner and making social calls. The dinner concluded, and they walked back to the corner where they had met. Miss Marian's limp was now scarcely noticeable.
The parting and Chandlers regret about his deception
Miss Marian thanked Chandler for the nice time and said she must run home. They shook hands cordially, and Chandler mentioned something about a game of bridge at his club. He watched her walk rapidly eastward, then found a cab to take him slowly home. In his chilly bedroom, Chandler put away his evening clothes for their sixty-nine day rest. He reflected thoughtfully on the evening.
Perhaps if I'd told her the truth instead of all that razzle–dazzle we might—but, confound it! I had to play up to my clothes.
The revelation of Miss Marians true identity
After leaving Chandler, the girl sped swiftly across town to a handsome mansion two squares east, facing the avenue of wealth. She hurried inside and ascended to a room where her elder sister anxiously awaited her return.
Her sister scolded her for frightening the family by running out in an old dress and a maid's hat. Their mother had been alarmed and had sent the chauffeur in the automobile to search for her. Miss Marian explained that she had only gone to a dressmaker to change an order about her costume, and that everyone had thought she was a shopgirl. She claimed she had slipped on the sidewalk, turned her ankle, and sat in a restaurant until she felt better.
The two sisters sat together in the window seat. The younger one cuddled with her head in her sister's lap and spoke dreamily about marriage. She described the kind of man she could love—one with dark and kind blue eyes, gentle and respectful to poor girls, handsome and good, who didn't try to flirt. But most importantly, he would need to have ambition and work to do in the world. She declared she could never love a man who lived an idle life between society and his clubs, even if he were kind to poor girls he met in the street.