"She had never taken a vacation?" asked Mme Storey.
"Well, not in a good many years. But when we travelled she went with us; when we went to the country she accompanied us. And when my husband was away from his office she had almost nothing to do. Just looked after his mail."
"So she went to Paris?"
"Yes. She said she had ten thousand dollars that she had saved out of her salary, and she meant to live in Paris until it was spent."
"And you want me to...?"
"To find her," said Mrs. Greenfield beseechingly. "They say you can read souls. Open the book of her soul and tell me what is written there."
"I'm afraid I am scarcely the magician you credit me with being," said Mme Storey soberly. "But I will do what I can."
"Ah, thank you, my dear!" said the old lady with tears in her eyes.
Mme Storey glanced at her watch. "I wish I had another day," she said, "But I can't change my ship. It's simply impossible to get berths at this season. We'll contrive somehow. After I have gone, one of my assistants, Mr. Crider, will call upon you. You will please give him the notebook, also the report you received on Miss Gowan, and any other evidence he may call for from time to time. His job will be to make a further investigation of her antecedents; to discover if she is corresponding with her acquaintances in this country, and to obtain a photograph of her to send me."
"Please do not take it amiss if I speak of money," said Mrs. Greenfield diffidently. "I am sure you understand that it is nothing to me what this girl may have stolen. It is the other thing: to clear that up I will gladly spend every penny I have. As for yourself..."
"There will be no difficulty about that," said Mme Storey carelessly. "I have my living to make, and I shall send you a bill, of course. But I am taking this case on its merits. Make your mind easy. I promise you, before we are through, we will either lay your doubts or prove them."
"Ah, you have taken a load off me already!" said Mrs. Greenfield. "The loneliness of mind was the worst. If everyone believes you mad, you might as well be mad. I feel that I have found a friend. That is an event in one's life!"
After she had gone Mme Storey sat for a few moments in a deep study, stabbing her desk blotter with a pencil. Then she lighted a fresh cigarette and smiled at me in the way that invites comment. I felt obliged to speak up for prudence.
"Are you sure that this conviction of hers may not after all be the product of a mind disordered by grief?"
"I am sure of nothing, Bella," she said, smiling.
"According to her own story, everything is against it," I pointed out.
"That is just what appeals to me. It brings up the old and never-to-be-settled controversy between reason and intuition. You know what side I fight on, Bella. I'm for intuition."
"How are you going to find her?" I said. "Paris is a city of how many millions of souls?"
"But the American colony is like a gossipy village. If she's spending money I shall hear of her at once."
We both glanced involuntarily at our watches. It lacked just fifty minutes of sailing time.
"Bella," drawled Mme Storey in that tone she adopts when she wishes to plague me, "if I've got to work in Paris, you must come along with me."
My heart at the same time began to pound and flutter. My breath was taken away. I suppose I looked at my mistress like one moonstruck, for she laughed merrily.
"Why not? You're a free and unattached female like myself. Just telephone your landlady that you'll mail her a check in advance for your rent. We'll write out Crider's instructions on the ship and send it ashore by the pilot."
"But—but my things?" I stammered.
"You'll have to share mine. My maid will make the necessary alterations. In Paris we'll get you a new outfit. I've always wanted a chance to dress you, Bella."
"Every berth on the ship is sold."
"Yes, but I'm doing myself the luxury of a sitting room this trip. You shall bunk there. Fortunately, you have a passport. We'll have it visaed on the way to the pier. We can just make it. Leave everything as it stands."
I was silenced. I flew about locking things. I felt like a woman in a dream. Paris! Paris! Paris! was ringing in my ears like a chime. Sober, matter-of-fact me going to Paris! And with my beloved mistress! Well as I knew her, and many as had been our shared adventures, I guessed that there was a Rosika Storey in Paris that I did not know, and the most delightful of all, perhaps. I don't suppose I shall ever recapture the bliss of that moment. Oh, well, once was something!
II
The next six days passed in a dream of delight: the sunny sea, the spaces of the mighty liner, the amusing human show, the luxury that lapped us—Mme Storey and I actually had our own tiny private veranda on deck; one felt one's self translated to an urbaner sphere. Mme Storey condescended to fascinate the captain, and our voyage was made very pleasant. Nowadays one must go to sea for real undisturbed luxury; on shore life is full of discomforts even for the affluent.
And then Paris! Paris in June! Out-of-doors Paris! Paris under the night sky! Déjeuner at the Pavilion d'Armenonville in the Bois: dinner on Montmartre: ices, and such ices, any time of the day or night, at the Café de la Paix, the centre of the world! Paris, where you may ride in taxicabs as much as ever you want for the price of trolley rides at home! Oh, Paris was more than ever a heaven for Americans at this time, with francs at seventeen to the dollar! It was really a sin not to drink champagne with every meal. But I must not say anything more about its effect on me. I am telling another story now.
That story recommences on the seventh day, when I found myself lunching beside a window at Meurice's between Mme Storey and Mrs. Wynn Charlton: the latter a name to conjure with among Americans in Paris. I should say in the beginning that Mme Storey passed as a lady of leisure in Paris. Nothing was known of her professional activities. I was regarded as her friend. Mme Storey was at my right, Mrs. Charlton at my left, and I, facing the window, looked out on the Rue de Rivoli under the arcade, with the Jardins des Tuileries across the street. The world was full of sunshine, and I felt like pinching myself to see if this was really I. What is, I suppose, the best-dressed crowd in the world, streamed by under the arcade. Mostly Americans. The Rue de Rivoli in June is theirs. I couldn't tell you what we ate. It was brought, and it was taken away as in a dream.
This Mrs. Wynn Charlton was a remarkable woman. By sheer force of determination she got herself accepted as beautiful and clever. She had a lot of money, though, that helped. At the moment the most remarkable thing about her was her hat. A tall-crowned hat set at a rakish angle with three upright feathers in contrasting shades. Everybody turned around to look at that hat. A stroke of genius—but not Mrs. Charlton's genius. From under the brim of it her little eyes peered at you in a way that was intended to be languorous and alluring. The exotic was her note; but when she became excited she forgot and talked like a buzzing aëroplane. In a word, Paris engrafted upon Waterbury, Conn.
My dear mistress created a sensation of another sort. Whoso liked to be astonished stared at Mrs. Charlton's hat; whoso loved beauty offered the tribute of his glances to Mme Storey. I understood at once why she loved Paris so: it was her natural element; she seemed to expand and to glow in that air. With a sure instinct she dressed more plainly in Paris than in New York. We are all beauty lovers, but the French are less tender minded than we; less apt to accept the pretentious at its own valuation. Masters of dress, they see through it. Mme Storey, in her sand-coloured turban and straight brown dress, was beauty, and in Paris she received her due.
She had desired to hear the latest gossip of the American colony, and Mrs. Charlton was giving her an earful. It would require pages to set it all down, even if I could remember it all. I shall give you only that part which has to do with the story.
"There's a newcomer," said Mrs. Charlton, "a sensation, not only in our set, but tout Paris. A Mrs. J. Eben Smith of Ypsilanti, Mich. Mysterious. Entirely alone; antecedents unknown. But as far as that goes the an
tecedents of most everybody over here is—or should I say are? That's what makes Paris so fascinating. You never know. I suppose Smith must be her real name, because nobody would ever choose such an alias."
"A clever woman might," murmured Mme Storey, "just for that reason."
"Well, anyway, Gertie de Vimoutier wrote to the postmaster at Ypsilanti asking about her, and got an answer back saying he had never heard of such a person. Gertie is always doing things like that, and then telling about them. She has no sense of fitness. Anyway, Mrs. Smith should worry. Her money is real."
"Money?" said Mme Storey, cocking an eyebrow.
"Lashings, my dear. And no encumbrances, apparently. Some women have all the luck.... A strange woman! None of us can make her out. She's something to talk about. Nobody can understand why such a woman was ever attracted to Paris."
"Why not her as well as another woman?" asked Mme Storey. With her chin on her palm my mistress mused smilingly, just dropping a question now and then to keep Mrs. Charlton keyed up.
"Well, my dear, sexless. Fancy that in this age of sex. A married woman (at least, she says she is) well over thirty years old, who still sports a virginal, remote air. Why, that sort of thing went out in the 'nineties. What does she want to come to Paris for? A Frenchman wouldn't know what to do with her. And our men are more French than the French, if you know what I mean."
"Well, she had to go somewhere," said Mme Storey, smiling.
"A strange woman, I tell you," insisted Mrs. Charlton; "she's not pretty, she has no allure, she's dumb as an oyster, yet in two months already she's a success."
"Two months?" said Mme Storey, glancing at me. Of course we couldn't know as yet that we were on the track of our quarry, but it was amusing to listen to Mrs. Charlton.
"... A success!" she rattled on. "She's in our set, and none of us can tell just how she got in. Sort of insinuated herself. Of course she has money. And there's nothing blatant about her. She can keep her mouth shut. The most significant set in Paris if I do say it. You know. The leading American women, and the ultra-ultra young French artists. Everything starts in our set. Why, my dear——"
"But about Mrs. Smith," prompted my mistress softly. "How do you account for her success?"
"Well, she's had the wit to put herself in the hands of the best men in Paris. Craqui raves over her type. I suppose it's really her absence of type that appeals to him. Being a nullity he can make whatever he likes of her. At any rate, Mrs. Smith is his pet this season; all his best designs are for her."
"His mistress?"
"No, indeed! I told you the woman was sexless. It is a purely artistic relation. They say that Craqui does her hair himself, and makes up her face in harmony with the costumes he designs for her. I assure you the ensembles are marvellous—marvellous! Egyptian, Chinese, or Central African effects. A lay figure on which Craqui spends all his art. Once it would have been thought outlandish, but nowadays you can't go too far. Everybody thought Craqui was spoiled by rich American tourists, but, after all, there is nobody like him. In Mrs. J. Eben Smith's gowns Craqui has come back. The woman creates a sensation wherever she appears, and that's all she does do, just appears."
"What's her colouring?" asked Mme Storey.
"Originally her hair was a lifeless light brown, I believe, but now, my dear! various new shades of red and gold woven together! It must be dyed strand by strand. The effect is astonishing. It never occurred to anybody before to dye their hair several shades at once. It's bound to become the rage.... Her eyes are a cold gray; extraordinarily steady, cold, contemptuous eyes; basilisk eyes; gives you the shivers to look into them. Smudged in and elongated with make-up, the effect is snaky in the extreme. Somebody does wonderful things to her with make-up; curious shadows about the lips that give the effect of petulance; a dead pallor with just a tinge of bistre; one eyebrow a little higher than the other. Oh, chic! chic! my dear! The sort of thing you can't copy!"
By this time Mme Storey and I had a strong suspicion that we need seek no further.
"Is she a particular friend of yours?" Mme Storey asked carelessly.
"A particular friend of nobody's, my dear. Everybody knows her and nobody knows her. Men like to be seen with her, she looks so expensive, but her silences, her basilisk eyes, make them uneasy. She doesn't play up. It's just as well, perhaps, that she is silent. Rochechouart told me they were lunching at Laperouse's, and in the midst of one of her sphinxlike silences, when he was wondering whether she was dreaming about voodoo or the lovers she had thrown to the crocodiles of the Nile, she looked down in her plate and said: 'Say, Prince, these peas are so green!' ... But you can't believe a word Hélie de Rochechouart says.
"I saw her first at the Jockey. That's a little place on the Boulevard Montparnasse where we go. New place since you were here, dear. It's Boué Say's hangout, and Exeideuil's and Dun le Roi's and Amasa Ounce's. The most advanced set in Paris. I don't know who brought her the first time. That night she was swathed in batik draperies representing tortoise shell with a necklace of enormous topazes and a peacock fan. Everybody in the room knew that Paris had a new celebrity when she entered with her stiff jerky little walk—a sort of a cross between the gait of an empress and incipient locomotor ataxia—but women don't have locomotor ataxia, do they? Anyhow, like everything else about her, it was effective."
Mme Storey and I exchanged another glance. We were sure now.
"I'd like to meet this remarkable woman," said my mistress.
"Nothing easier, my dear. You're dining with me to-morrow night. We'll go on to the Jockey after. General le Boutillier shall take us. She's sure to be there."
Mrs. Charlton chattered on about other matters.
III
Craqui, foremost among male dressmakers in Paris (or in the world), was an old acquaintance of Mme Storey's. His establishment is in the Rue de la Paix, naturally, and thither we had ourselves carried next morning. Ah! what a palace of tantalizing delights that was! A woman weeps at the difficulty of choosing. In the show window at the Place Vendôme corner there was but one amazing dress displayed; nothing more or less than a lopsided piece of goods in a queer chequered pattern of green and black on a white ground. Nobody but Craqui would have thought of using that material; and what art in its lopsidedness! Of the passers-by some laughed, a few admired, but none missed it.
Inside there was no hint of merchandising, of course. A series of elegant salons in the French style. A grand salon below for ordinary customers, and various delightful little chambers above for the more favoured sort. Into one of the most recherché of these we were shown, and a lady of the most exalted rank, one would say, came to inquire our pleasure. A greater honour was in store: M. Craqui himself came running to kiss Mme Storey's hand. A truly remarkable figure of a fat man in a sportive belted coat. He had a closely cropped brown beard—a sort of genteel bear of a man, and wore, of all things! a pair of dark smoked glasses. Whether this was to protect his eyes from the dazzling stuffs that were brought forth, or from the sight of too much female loveliness, I'm sure I can't say.
We sat in fauteuils, and a succession of young girls were admitted to the room one at a time, each one clad in a design of M. Craqui's more beautiful than the last. With what a clever effect they entered, moved about the little room, paused, turned, lifted their arms, went out. Each one had a highly impersonal air that our models do not seem to be able to attain to. The creator of it all leaned on the back of Mme Storey's chair and advised with her. They talked in French; talked so fast I missed some of the words, but I got the gist of it. At this time Craqui had just invented the famous "stove-pipe silhouette" which admirably became Mme Storey's tall slimness. She ordered it in a dozen different manifestations.
The mannequins were superb creatures. I had expected artificiality in the French, but I quickly learned they can appreciate nature. All the girls were very young, just arrived at the blush of womanhood, in fact, and, uncorseted and unhampered by much underclothing, their young bodies sway
ed with a barbaric and insolent grace. It struck me as rather strange that such fresh young things should be used to display clothes to the aging and exhausted rich women who must have constituted the majority of M. Craqui's patrons. One would think they might enrage the older women. But I suppose there is no woman so old she cannot picture herself as one of the mannequins. And then they do not often bring their husbands, of course.
M. Craqui was one blaze of excited gesticulation. In America we are given to smiling at men dressmakers—well, Craqui was absurd from our point of view, but he was also a great artist.
"Madame!" he said, striking an attitude, "I have a piece of crimson brocade. Ah-h! You must see it!"
"Monsieur! Remember I'm a poor woman. Positively, not another thing!"
"Madame! If you cannot pay for it, I will give it to you. This piece was woven for you. I could not bear to see another woman have it."
"Flatterer!"
"Thérèse! Fetch me the piece of brocade from my private escritoire. Vite! Vite!"
In due course it was brought.
"Regardez, Madame, regardez. Is it not imperial? ... Gabrielle! Gabrielle!! GABRIELLE!!!"
Gabrielle, a brunette like Mme Storey, was introduced to the room in camisole and bloomers. M. Craqui seized a pair of shears and with scarcely a glance cut recklessly into the priceless stuff. All the women exclaimed in dismay. In a jiffy two lengths of it were hanging from Gabrielle's lovely shoulders. M. Craqui like lightning snatched pins from the trembling hands of Thérèse and jabbed them cunningly here and there.
"Voilà! Voilà! Caught over the shoulders in two points and hanging perfectly straight but for a slight fullness under the breast and my three wrinkles across the abdomen. Behold, Madame!"
Indeed, in two minutes there hung the glorious evening gown complete. Absolutely simple, yet stamped with the genius of Craqui.
MRS3 The Velvet Hand Page 2
