Under the Stars of Paris

by Mary Burchell

  “Had she done anything specially nasty to him?” Roger enquired.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him and his horrible private affairs. I only know that no one has any right to try to humiliate a woman or destroy an artist like that. Wild horses wouldn’t have got me here if I’d known I was to be used for anything of the sort.”

  “Well, you dealt with the situation beautifully,” Roger told her gently. “Don’t be so distressed, my dear.”

  She bit her lip and made an effort to be calm again.

  “I’m sorry. I’m trying very hard not to look as though I’m saying angry or agitated things. It’s horrible sitting here on show and feeling like a volcano ready to erupt.”

  “Poor child.” Roger smiled at her in a steady, heartwarming way. “Do you want to go home, my dear? If so, I’ll make some excuse to Eve and leave her with her friends for the last act, and take you.”

  For a moment the prospect of being safe with Roger was so exquisitely enticing that she nearly agreed. Then she remembered the complications this would involve—and, above all, that she would miss her opportunity of some sort of explanation with Florian.

  “No, thank you,” she said gently. “It’s sweet of you to suggest it. But I’ll see this thing out now I’m here.”

  He looked a little doubtful, but she was quite insistent. And presently, with a few more encouraging words, he left her. Just as the lights were lowered Florian returned to his seat.

  He and Anthea exchanged no words. Indeed, throughout the last act, they behaved like strangers to each other. And only when the final curtain fell and Peroni, as well as the other singers, had taken her last bow, did Anthea stand up and allow Florian to put the disputed cloak around her.

  “I take it you will not come round backstage?” he said, as they went out of the box.

  “I should be honoured to meet Madame Peroni another time, but not tonight,” Anthea replied. And she saw Florian bite his lip—but whether with anger or amusement she was not quite sure.

  As they made their slow way to the exit, people stared at her once more, but this time Anthea did not enjoy the experience. Some were still concerned only with the beauty of her appearance, no doubt. But others looked at her because of what had happened in the theatre that night.

  When at last they came out to the car, Florian said abruptly,

  “Shall I take you straight home?”

  “I don’t want to go out to supper with you, if that’s what you mean,” Anthea replied, with a curt ungraciousness she would have thought impossible two hours ago.

  “Very well.” He gave an order to the chauffeur and got into the car beside her.

  Then, as they drove down the Avenue de l’Opéra, Anthea realized that her time would be all too short for explanations if they drove straight to her home and, as though she had some right to speak so to Florian, she said,

  “Ask him to drive round a bit, will you, please?”

  He gave her an odd glance, and for a moment she thought he was going to remind her that she was the latest and least important of his mannequins. They he picked up the speaking tube and gave the order to the chauffeur.

  “That will give us some time to talk,” Anthea said, looking straight ahead, rather than at him.

  “Mademoiselle, very little time is needed for what I have to say,” was the dry reply. “I have never allowed open disobedience in any of my staff. Those who attempt to practise it go.”

  She knew she went rather pale, but she answered resolutely.

  “I was not only your mannequin tonight, Monsieur Florian. In your salon I am entirely at your command. Everyone is aware that we act under orders there. But outside your salon, even if I am wearing your designs, I am a free agent. You had no right to involve me in this scene tonight, to make me your partner in something you must have known I should reject with scorn and loathing if I had known beforehand what was to happen.”

  “You were there to display my cloak,” he said coldly.

  “I was not!” She turned on him furiously. “I was there to humiliate your mistress, it seems!”

  “Peroni is not my mistress,” he stated coolly, and for a moment Anthea was given pause by this categorical denial. But then she rushed on,

  “I don’t care what your exact relationship is, or what quarrel induced you to do this thing tonight. I only know it was wicked—abominable—to act in that way towards her. But most wicked of all was to involve me—anyone—in it unknowingly. What do you suppose people thought? That I was your next——” She stopped, remembered his denial and changed the wording. “That I had lent myself to this scene because I was so small and mean as to find gratification in being the one who wore the real glory, while she—the great artist—was made to seem inferior and slightly ridiculous. You should have taken Héloïse if you wanted an ally in such an undertaking, monsieur.” Anthea gave a furious little laugh. “She would have loved it!”

  He was silent for a moment, though he smiled faintly at the reference to Héloïse. Then he said—but without any note of conciliation in his voice—merely as a statement of interest,

  “I had no idea you would take this so personally——”

  “Then how did you think I would take it?” she demanded.

  “For one thing”—again that slight smile—“I didn’t imagine you would grasp the implications of the scene so quickly.”

  “No, of course not! You think I am a simple little soul who doesn’t know such things happen, don’t you? You thought I’d sit there draped in white mink—so wide-eyed, so unknowing!” Bitterly she flung back at him the words which had curiously moved her when he had used them.

  “Mon enfant, will you stop berating me for a moment?” There was undoubtedly a hint of amusement in Florian’s quietly pitched voice now. “If your rage is based on the idea that people will—misinterpret your position because of this, you are wrong. Alone you might not be recognized yet as my mannequin. With me you were easily identified as the girl who was photographed so much in my wedding dress. Few people will suppose you took any active part in what happened tonight. You were merely the model used for the occasion.”

  “That isn’t the point.” But she spoke more quietly now. “I suppose I don’t really mind so much what people think, anyway. It—it was the idea that you could use me to stage such a plan.”

  He gave a slight, impatient laugh.

  “Don’t you think I am entitled to the anger and chagrin there?” he said drily. “Thanks to your disobedience, the plan misfired.”

  “Oh——” She bit her lip and considered that.

  “In fact, since you wrecked the plot and you also say you are largely indifferent to the idea that you personally might be misjudged over this, why exactly are you so angry and distressed?”

  It was logical enough. And for a startled moment Anthea reviewed the ruins of her evening and wondered why it was that she still felt cold and shattered and hurt in a way that could be expressed only in anger.

  “Well, mon enfant?” He watched the varying emotions chase each other across her expressive young face.

  “It was—it was—the disillusionment,” she said slowly at last.

  “I don’t understand.” He slightly narrowed his eyes.

  “I’ll try—to explain.” She glanced down at her hands which were gripping the pearl and rhinestone evening bag a little too tightly. “It started as such a radiant, perfect occasion. First that you should have asked me at all—simply to rescue me from Eve’s spite——”

  “But I told you that it suited me to have you there,” he exclaimed a little harshly.

  “I didn’t entirely believe you, Monsieur Florian.” She raised her eyes then and looked at him. “I still felt as though you had—I don’t quite know what the expression is—flung the mantle of your protection round me. The—the cloak was almost symbolical.”

  “You are absurd,” he said very quietly, but she saw the hard, thin line of his mouth soften.

&nbs
p; “And then—to be wearing the heavenly dress you had given me—without any ulterior motive. Everything about the occasion was generous—generous.” Suddenly her voice shook and there was the sound of tears in it. “I was proud to be with you, too. I don’t know why I should pretend otherwise. One is proud to be with the great unless one is mean-spirited. It isn’t a question of vanity. I think I was proud of you—the great man, who made occasional gestures of imaginative generosity—my employer—Florian.” As she said his name, she began to cry in earnest, the tears suddenly spilling down her cheeks. “And then, all at once, none of it was true at all. It was all calculated and cruel and ungenerous. To the last degree, ungenerous!” And she covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

  There was complete and astounded silence in the car except for the hum of the motor and the catching of her breath. Then she heard Florian say softly, incredulously,

  “Mon dieu! does anyone really care like this about one’s feet of clay?” And the next moment he had put his arm round her, and she felt the light, cool touch of his lips against her wet cheek.

  Chapter Ten

  “Don’t cry, chérie,” Florian said at last. “No man is worth it. Certainly I am not. I had no idea that I could distress you so much, or I would have been more careful of you. But—Lord! how was I to know that you thought me a great man—in those terms? I am not, you know. I’m a brilliant designer and a successful man. But I am not great in the high-souled sense.”

  “Yes, you are—occasionally.” Anthea choked back a sob and spoke without looking up. “You were—the time I spoiled your green dress, and you bothered to—to find out the truth about Héloïse—and then gave me the dress, instead of sacking me for my stupidity, as most men would have done.”

  “I couldn’t afford to sack you.” She knew from his tone that he was smiling. “I had no one else to put in your place.”

  “It wasn’t that, really, was it?” She looked up.

  “No, petite.”

  “I’m sorry I got excited and cried. It’s silly to make a scene.” She drew a long sigh. “I’m all right now.” She sat up, and he immediately took his arm away.

  “You have no need to apologize,” he said drily. “I suppose it is for me to do that. If it is any consolation to you, I did intend at first to take Héloïse tonight. I made the change only when I heard Miss Armoor being offensive to you. So far at least I meant well by you. I am afraid I never thought of your reaction to being made useful in your turn. I am not used to people who bother so much about the rights and wrongs of strangers. I could not guess that you would side passionately with Peroni.”

  “Any decent person would!”

  “Against me, you mean?”

  “In this case—yes. You were in the wrong, monsieur.”

  “It is as simple as that, is it?” He laughed softly. “But you don’t really know, do you?”

  “What lay behind it all, you mean?” She looked faintly disturbed, as though she might be forced to hear further revelations which she could not bear.

  “Don’t worry—I am not going to tell you,” he said drily. “I have shattered enough illusions for one night, it seems. If you think nothing excuses what I did, the argument is over.”

  “Monsieur Florian,” she said a little timidly, “I am not presuming to sit in judgment upon you. It’s only——”

  “Petite,” he said amusedly. “I think perhaps that is exactly what you are doing. But maybe I would rather be judged unheard than explain in unpalatable detail. You might not find it in your heart to weep for me then, and I think I would not have those tears unshed.”

  “Oh”—she blushed a little—“it was silly of me, I know, but——”

  “No, not silly, whatever else it was. I cannot recall anyone else ever shedding a tear about me,” he went on musingly. “It is curiously—disconcerting.”

  She hardly knew what to say to that, so she was silent for a moment. Then, remembering almost the first thing he had said to her after they got into the car, she asked a little apprehensively,

  “Am I going to be dismissed—now that we have—talked things over?”

  “No,” he said with an exasperated laugh. “No, once more you escape dismissal by the skin of your teeth. It is becoming a habit. Are you going to reconsider your decision too and come out to supper with me, after all?”

  “Oh——” Suddenly she found that she was hungry and that she very much wanted to go to supper with Monsieur Florian. “But not in this,” she said quickly, touching the cloak.

  He started to say something, then changed his mind, apparently, for picking up the speaking tube, he bade the chauffeur drive to the salon.

  In two or three minutes they drew up in the silent street outside the deserted building.

  “Give me the cloak,” he said rather impatiently, and Anthea very willingly slipped out of it.

  Taking it over his arm, he got out of the car and crossed the pavement to the entrance. She saw him standing there for a moment, while he drew his keys from his pocket on a long, slender platinum chain. Then he opened the door and went into the building, switching on a few lights as he went.

  He was gone several minutes, and she guessed that he was putting the fabulous cloak in a place of safety. She shivered a little without it, but was curiously glad to be free of its ill-starred beauty. And if anyone thought it odd for her to walk into a restaurant without any wrap on a cool spring evening—that was better than to run the risk of some ghastly coincidence in which she might somehow still encounter Peroni while she was wearing the cloak.

  She heard the slam of the door, and a moment later Florian got into the car again.

  “You had better put this on,” he said rather disagreeably. And she saw that he was holding a white velvet evening coat with immense fox cuffs.

  “Thank you,” she said meekly.

  “It is from last autumn’s collection,” he explained disparagingly, “but there is no need for you to get pneumonia for your principles.”

  She laughed a good deal at that, and then he too smiled.

  “So you can still laugh?” he said.

  “Oh, yes—of course. I could even enjoy some supper.”

  “Good. I feel a little less like a murderer.”

  “Oh, Monsieur Florian! I didn’t really mean to make you feel like that. Perhaps I made rather—rather too much of it all.”

  He gave her an ironical, not unkindly glance.

  “Well, one of us got things a little out of proportion. I am not quite sure which,” he said. Then he changed the subject entirely, and during the rest of the time she was with him he made no other reference whatever to the earlier events of the evening.

  He took her to a small, quiet, exclusive-looking place for supper, where the food was as wonderful in its way as his own creations, and the wine the most exquisite Anthea had ever tasted. He was obviously well known there, and chose everything in that carelessly knowledgeable way that speaks of long experience.

  Watching him, Anthea found herself wondering once more about him, and when the waiter had withdrawn and he turned again to her, she said on impulse,

  “Monsieur Florian, how long have you been at the top of your profession?”

  “About seven years, Gabrielle. And it took me eight to get there,” he told her quite frankly.

  She started to do some mental arithmetic, but he smiled and said rather indulgently,

  “I am thirty-eight, if that is what you are trying to arrive at.”

  She laughed.

  “You are quite generous with your information this evening, monsieur. People usually describe you as an enigma.”

  “The facts I have just given you can be found in any reference book,” he assured her. “And I do not claim to be an enigma. I do not know why anyone should describe me as such.”

  “I suppose,” Anthea said musingly, “because so little is known of your private life.”

  “Anyone who lives in the public eye as I do has practically no
private life,” he replied carelessly. And then their meal was brought, and there was no further chance to ask about his private life, if any.

  Instead, he asked her about her life before she came to Paris, and seemed amused and interested by her description of her father and Millicent.

  “And how about the two men in your life?” he enquired amusedly. “What is the situation there?”

  “Well, Michael is going to marry Eve, of course. Quite soon, I suppose. But you probably know as much of that as I do. After all, you are making the wedding dress.”

  “True. You sound cheerful about it. Has it perhaps no longer the aura of tragedy which it once had?”

  “Monsieur Florian! How quick you are to notice shades of meaning in one’s voice. How did you know?”

  “How did I know what?”

  “That—that it doesn’t matter about Michael any more.”

  “By—as you said—the overtones of your voice. Besides, your eyes were completely unshadowed as you said his name. It is at least a fair guess that our old friend Time has done his work.”

  Anthea considered that soberly.

  “I didn’t know myself until Wednesday evening,” she told him.

  “No?” Florian smiled. “And what made you know on Wednesday evening?”

  “Oh—I don’t know.—Yes, I do. It was something that Roger said about him. And suddenly I found that I agreed, although it was rather—rather disparaging.”

  “Ah—Roger. The other man,” said Florian reflectively.

  “I don’t think I should call him that, Monsieur Florian. At least not in that tone. We are——”

  “I know. Only friends,” he finished mockingly. “I noticed, however, that friendship extended to his coming into the box this evening and holding your hand while he commiserated with you over the villainy of your employer.”

  “Oh—you saw that?” She was faintly put out.

  “Of course.”

  She smiled a little and her eyes softened as she remembered how infinitely glad she had been to see Roger.

  “He is so awfully nice,” she said half to herself.