Lady Gwendolyn recognized the uniform at once. East India Trading Company! She smiled without realizing she did so; she owed a great deal to the East India Trading Company- such as her fortune, her title, and her position in London society- and she had loved India when she and her father had lived there.
She was greatly inclined to be agreeable to anyone from that company, and was even more inclined to start up a conversation so she might have the pleasure of talking of India.
Thus, she carefully unpinned her Kashmir shawl (worn draped over one shoulder, half in imitation of the Greeks, half in imitation of the Indians) and allowed it to slide off her shoulder and onto the floor as she walked by the East India Company officer. "Oh, pray excuse me!" she exclaimed, bending down to get it.