Silks swished over cobblestones briskly and tall,sculpted heels clicked delicately as their wearer made her elegant way out onto the street. The crowds that passed were dressed for business and the good restaurants of the city, however the emerging woman took none of that into consideration. To a business-suit-eye, she might seem bizarre, even ecentric, perhaps cosutmed, but to the right eye, she was the perfect embodiment of elegant, good taste and fashion - wizarding fashion, of ourse, which was, at its best belonged to quite a different centruy of standard than tailored pinstripes or black pumps.

Cordelia was dressed carefully - as always - in sunset-coloured silks, honey-gold hair topped in an elaborate matching hat and veil shielding her sensitive complexion from unwanted fall freckles. Cordelia, of course, never let a detail by in that regard. She was quite set apart from the passersby on the street, but she hardly allowed that to concern her. Those that mattered would know her, those that didn't, she hardly noticed. It was, perhaps, a simple perspective on life, but a demanding one. Cordelia split her days between her mirror and society. It was far from an easy existence. If you asked her. But it was, of course, the favoured one.

You dressed in your best and swished through the very best of parlours, offering your hand and feeling all eyes on you. It was quite different than the dusty country halls and undirected intellect she had grown up in, and she was thankful for it.

In her few years in London since school, the young Miss Greengrass had made it distinctly her business to make herself known at grand parties and to young men equally belaboured with the absence of a married commitment and she had done well for herself, despite certain setbacks. However, she had given equal thought to the avoidance of other 'young ladies', particularly the sort engaged since birth or toting sparkly rings from their promised young wizards. She had preferred not to lower herself to their scornful glances and pitying whispers and was determined not to require their company.

However, even self-interested Cordelia Greengrass could not go without companionship. And after the falling through of arrangements with te Lestranges, she had waited time enough for the gossip to pass before attempting a new strategy. Proud as she was, Cordelia refused to think that her situation lessened her to the girls she had grown up with, not anymore. She had taken to attending a private salon of a pretty society lady by the name of Wilkes who took pleasure in bringing young ladies together. Of course, Cordelia was older than the unmarried attendees at least by a year and her peers happily spoke of their recent marriages and new households.

It did not put her in the best of moods, but she was determined to stick through it - as a statement to both herself and in the face of such women. She dressed immaculately each week and made the impression her years at school had deprived her of, betrothal or not. Cordelia would marry, she told herself, when it would suit her personal advancement. She would not be stuck serving the whims of her pathetic husband, the way poor mousy Caroline MacMillian. It was beneath her.

They coould all sneer beneath their napkins, but - as she was discovering - she herself great favours but putting herself in womens' company. Once they would have said she must be faulted for her lack of achievement. Now the could see her carefully constructed front and would be forced - she hoped - to see her worth.

Besides. Even the most selfish cannot thrive without any companionship.

Deep rose-coloured silk swished around Cordelia's ankles as she followed a passing October wind off the doorstep of the grand Mme. Wilkes' apartment and into the city streets.Her heels clicked with dignity and purpose as she made her way from the door, her fingers gloved neatly in grey kid-leather. She raised a hand to adjust her hat before turning onto the pavement and, in pointed and directly purposeful ignorance of everyone around her, began on her way in the direction of a nearby ally from where she could apparate back to her chambers.