Under the Stars of Paris

by Mary Burchell

  Florian made a slight face.

  “Does he like that description himself?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever said it to his face. I suppose he would like it. Why not?”

  “It has a certain—worthiness and dullness about it which I find extraordinarily unattractive. I trust you never describe me to anyone as awfully nice?”

  “Never,” Anthea assured him with such unvarnished simplicity that he looked intrigued—and then slightly nettled.

  “Which means that I am not worthy to rank with Roger?” he suggested.

  “I shouldn’t think of you in the same light,” Anthea said gravely. And, though he teased her a little to be more explicit, she refused to be drawn.

  He took her home at last, when the ceaseless hum of Paris was dropping to the quietest note it ever achieves. And in the silent, gloomy hall he bade her good night. Even the concierge was asleep by now, and so missed the satisfaction of observing the mysterious fact that the English Miss returned in something less sumptuous than the cloak in which she had departed.

  “Thank you for lending me this.” Anthea removed the borrowed coat.

  “You can bring it to the salon on Monday.”

  “No. If I do, they will all ask questions,” Anthea pointed out.

  “Well, you will then be able to tell them the whole story,” he retorted rather curtly. “It 4s not often that one of my mannequins has the satisfaction of outwitting me.”

  “I have no intention of telling anyone the story, monsieur. And it was no satisfaction to have to—defy you,” Anthea said gravely.

  He looked down at her rather moodily in the half light.

  “It took all your courage to do it, didn’t it?” he said slowly. “You were very much afraid at one moment.”

  “Yes.”

  He put the coat round her again, holding it lightly by the lapels, so that she had to look up at him.

  “Will you take the coat and forgive me?” he said, half smiling.

  “No, monsieur. I will not take the coat, but I will forgive you,” Anthea replied with a smile too.

  “Why won’t you take the coat?” He spoke rather imperiously.

  “Because it was enough to take the dress. One does not repeat these things, Monsieur Florian. Or if one does they mean something else.”

  He studied her for a moment in silence. Then he laughed shortly. “I should like to tell you never to be afraid of me again, mon enfant,” he said a little sardonically. “But, if I removed the wholesome touch of fear by which I rule you all, I should really have to send you away from my salon. But I promise that never again will I give you cause to cry. Are we friends once more?”

  “Of course! And most willingly so.” She put up her hands over his for a moment. “Thank you, Monsieur Florian—for everything.”

  He released her then, bade her a good night as brief and unemotional as if she were Héloïse, and left her.

  Anthea was too weary to do more than fall into bed and sleep. But, since the next day was Saturday, she had plenty of time to reflect on the extraordinary events of the previous evening, and to wonder incredulously if they had really happened.

  She felt it would have been difficult to credit them at all but for the fact that, among the photographs of notabilities at the opera which appeared in the daily press, there was an excellent one of herself and Florian entering the theatre.

  There was some reference to the “fabulous white mink cloak worn by Gabrielle, Florian’s latest and most attractive mannequin”, but no mention whatever of the drama which the appearance of the cloak had precipitated.

  In the afternoon Roger called, with the suggestion that they should motor out along the upper reaches of the river and find some pleasant country inn where they could have an early dinner.

  Delightedly, Anthea accepted—remembering, as she did so, how she had described Roger to Florian and thinking that, in spite of Florian’s protests, the description both fitted him and adorned him.

  “Roger, do you mind being called awfully nice?” she asked, almost before they had started.

  “Depends who calls me that.” He grinned at her. “Where’s the catch?”

  “There isn’t any catch. I called you that. And Florian seemed to think it was a horrid way to describe anyone.”

  “Well, I can think of some horrid ways of describing Florian, but ‘awfully nice’ wouldn’t be one of them,” Roger replied cheerfully. “We use a different measuring rule, I guess. Don’t worry. You can call me awfully nice as much as you like, and I’ll just purr like a cat.”

  She laughed.

  “Now, tell me—how did the great showdown go?”

  “The—— Oh, well, Florian was very mad with me at first for having made his plan misfire. But I talked to him—and he did rather see my point.”

  “The devil he did!” Roger was amused and impressed. “You must have talked very eloquently.”

  “I—don’t know. I think he was surprised that I was so—hot about it all.”

  “You mean you just raged at him and he piped down?”

  “Oh—no. I suppose I did rage at him, and he just stayed cold and talked about dismissing anyone who disobeyed him. And then I’m afraid I cried——”

  “Because he threatened to sack you? The bully!”

  “Oh, no. I wasn’t worried about that. At least—I mean I didn’t really take that in. It was when I was trying to explain exactly why I was so furious and—and miserable about it all. How I’d thought him so wonderful and generous and fine—and then found how abominably he’d behaved.”

  “Good heavens!” Roger looked at her and gave a protesting laugh. “Are you trying to tell me that you wasted some tears over the discovery that the Florian idol had feet of clay?”

  “How odd that you should use that expression.” She smiled reminiscently. “He used it too.”

  “Well, it is the one that comes to mind,” Roger said drily. “But do go on. What did Florian do at this point? I should think the situation was without parallel in his varied experience.”

  Anthea thought of just what had happened, and suddenly she didn’t want to tell even Roger about it.

  “Oh, I think he was rather ashamed of himself,” she explained quickly. “He was really very nice and—more or less apologized for what he had involved me in——”

  “I should think so too! Using you to pay off some score against his mistress.”

  “She’s not his mistress, Roger. He told me she isn’t—categorically.”

  “I say—you did take down your back hair, the pair of you, didn’t you?” Roger was half amused and half annoyed, she could see. “What else did he tell you about him and Peroni?”

  “Nothing. But I said something about her being—that. And he said she wasn’t.”

  “Isn’t, you mean.”

  “Well, it’s the same thing.”

  “No, it isn’t. I suppose she was once, but isn’t now.”

  “Oh, I don’t think he meant that!” Anthea was a good deal taken aback. “He just said flatly, ‘She is not my mistress’—like that.”

  “Well, there you are! He said nothing about her not having been so once,” Roger retorted triumphantly.

  “But the implication was there, Roger. It would have been very—disingenuous of him to put it that way, if she ever had been.”

  “You’ll hardly believe me, Anthea,” said Roger, grinning good-humouredly, “but I can quite imagine Florian being disingenuous, as you put it. In fact, with a great effort, I can even imagine him lying like a trooper.”

  “Not to me,” Anthea said before she could stop herself, and then hoped that didn’t sound smug.

  To her surprise, Roger looked at her consideringly.

  “No, perhaps not to you,” he agreed unexpectedly. “You’re damned difficult to lie to.”

  “Why, Roger, have you ever tried?” She laughed gaily.

  He didn’t answer that immediately. And after a moment, she said, on a r
ather different note,

  “You—you didn’t ever lie to me, did you?”

  “Yes.” He spoke with the very slightest touch of bravado. “I did once—pretty thoroughly. I thought the circumstances justified it. I still do. But the odd thing is that I still feel uncomfortable when I look at you and remember that I did it.”

  “Roger——” She hardly knew whether to laugh or to take him seriously. “I can’t image—— Are you going to tell me about it now?” she asked suddenly.

  “Yes. Not because I think it would ever be found out. But because I hate having that between us, and I think—I think perhaps the necessity for it is over.”

  Even then he did not start to explain at once, and from his suddenly sobered expression she thought that perhaps he was regretting the impulse to tell her. But it was too late to draw back now, so after a moment she said,

  “When was it, Roger?”

  “When we first met. At least, the time you came out with me after the opening show. I didn’t want that just to be an isolated incident, and yet I knew that it weighed heavily against me that I was Eve’s cousin——”

  “Oh, it didn’t! I’m not as unreasonable as that,” she protested.

  “I don’t mean that you had a grudge against me for it. But it was perfectly natural that anything or anyone connected with her just made you wince. Left to yourself, you wouldn’t have chosen to see much more of me, would you?”

  “We-ell—perhaps not. It’s difficult now to imagine not wanting to see you again,” she said rather naïvely.

  Roger laughed. But it was a faintly relieved laugh.

  “I knew that must be pretty well how you felt. And yet if I wasn’t allowed to keep an eye on you—who would?”

  “But did anyone have to?”

  “Yes, I think they did, Anthea. You were entirely alone, virtually without money, dependent simply on the caprice of a man like Florian, who might be remarkably glad to have you one week and chuck you out the next.”

  “I don’t think he’d do that,” Anthea said gravely.

  “You’d be surprised! Anyway, we won’t digress to discuss the beauty of Florian’s character again,” Roger stated firmly. “That was how I saw it, and I darned well meant to see more of you, however I had to manage it.”

  “Purely as a human duty?” suggested Anthea demurely.

  He glanced sideways at her and laughed.

  “I wouldn’t say exactly that. Anyway, I had to think quickly how I could transform myself into someone you could bear to be with, even though I was closely connected with Eve. So”—again he glanced at her, but a little defiantly that time—“I did.”

  “I don’t understand. What did you do?”

  “I—maybe it sounds rather far-fetched and officious now—but I thought the only kind of fellow who wouldn’t hurt your pride and make you feel isolated in your unhappiness would be one who’d taken the same sort of tumble. You could even feel sorry for him. And there’s nothing that does more for hurt pride than to be able to be sorry for someone else.”

  “Roger! You mean you——”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “I invented a girl who’d turned me down in similar circumstances. I even gave her a name in my own mind, in case you ever asked for details about her. Fortunately, you never asked very much. I’m not sure that I could have kept it up if you had. As I told you—like Florian, I find it difficult to lie to you.”

  “But what an extraordinary idea!”

  “Are you very angry with me about it?”

  “Angry? No, of course not. I was trying to imagine how one could feel so—responsible for an almost unknown girl. Why you should want to do such a thing.”

  “I suppose,” Roger said slowly, “it was partly your courage at that confounded dress show. To see both Michael and Eve there must have been the biggest knock you could possibly have taken. And yet no one could have known it from the way you wore those clothes and smiled, and even carried off the scene with the wedding dress. I decided then and there that you shouldn’t be left to shift for yourself in the next few weeks or months.”

  “Oh, Roger, how exactly like you! So that was why you came back and waited for me in the car?”

  “Yes. And you thought for a moment it was Michael, didn’t you?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “You took that shock so well, too, I remember. You didn’t want to hurt my feelings, even in that moment. I thought you such a game little thing that I’d have told fifty lies for the chance of getting to know you better.”

  She laughed at that, and tried—but without success—to recapture her feelings on that occasion.

  “Well, I’m glad you told the one lie, anyway,” she said quite earnestly. “I don’t think I should have agreed to see more of you without it. There was such a relief—such a relaxation—about being with someone who had had all the same experiences, as I thought. I didn’t have to pretend, or be brave all the time, or anything. Roger, it was very clever of you.” And, with a little laugh, she put her hand for a moment over one of his as it rested on the steering wheel.

  “Thank you, darling.” He spoke quite lightly, but he turned his hand for a moment and held hers.

  “And you were quite right too in thinking that the necessity for keeping up the pretence was over. I don’t feel—hurt or humiliated about Michael any more, you know.”

  “I did wonder—the other night.”

  “And so”—she laughed again to herself, but rather tenderly, as she thought of Roger’s subterfuge—“and so I don’t have to bolster up my morale any more by being sorry for someone else, as you put it.”

  “Good.”

  “And oh, Roger, I’m so terribly glad that no horrible girl did let you down, after all!”

  “To tell the truth, so am I,” agreed Roger good-humouredly. “I’m glad to get rid of Cynthia—I called her Cynthia.—It seems to clear the decks completely, somehow.”

  She laughed over Cynthia and agreed that her removal did “clear the decks”. Then she wondered just what they both meant by that term. And slowly the impression began to grow upon her that, in some subtle way, this conversation was bound to change the relationship between herself and Roger.

  If he were no longer to be the philosophical fellow sufferer—the companion whose sharing of a common experience entitled him to an unusual degree of confidence and intimacy—just what was he in her life?

  Until now, she had allowed herself to think of him almost as a brother. But both her instinct and her common sense told her now that Roger’s brotherly phase was over.

  Chapter Eleven

  On Monday, when Anthea arrived at the salon, she found herself a subject of interest to a degree that had not existed since she wore the wedding dress at the opening show. It seemed that not only had everyone seen the photograph of her and Monsieur Florian entering the Opéra—enough in itself to excite the proprietorial interest of all on the staff—but also, in some indefinable way, some whisper of the scene inside the building had got about.

  Héloïse—naturally the first to broach a delicate subject—looked her up and down with a malicious smile before remarking,

  “So you tried to discomfit your rival on Friday night? For publicity some people will do anything.”

  “What do you mean?” Anthea contrived to look mildly surprised.

  “She is sly, that one!” Héloïse laughed scornfully, as she addressed anyone who cared to listen—which, to tell the truth, included all her fellow mannequins. “All Paris knows about it and she says, ‘What do you mean?’” She mimicked Anthea’s tone rudely.

  “It’s only a rumour,” one of the other girls put in, half apologetically. “But they say that Peroni came in wearing a shabby version of your cloak in the second act, and that when she glanced up and saw you in the stage box, she shook her fist at you.”

  Anthea laughed—glad to be able to deny at least this with vigour.

  “I don’t imagine she even noticed I was there,” she said. “It
was unfortunate about the two cloaks, of course. But how was Monsieur Florian to know she would elect to wear hers on the stage that night? As soon as I realized what had happened, I turned mine back over my chair. I don’t think many people noticed. And anyway, she was so marvellous that one didn’t think of anything but the performance after a few moments.”

  Even Héloïse looked shaken, but Anthea saw the very faintest smile pass over Odette’s face.

  “It is almost unheard-of for Monsieur Florian to duplicate a design of such importance,” objected the girl who had retailed the story about Peroni shaking her fist at Anthea. “He must have done it deliberately, for some purpose of his own.”

  “Oh—I don’t see why.” Anthea shrugged. “I suppose, having designed Peroni’s cloak for the stage some time ago, he suddenly thought how beautifully it could be adapted for ordinary wear, in white mink. Anyway, the incident passed off quite well. And I assure you there was no fist-shaking from either of us,” she finished with a laugh.

  No one said any more just then. If they thought the explanation thin, at least Anthea delivered it with an impersonal firmness that carried conviction. But later, when—Anthea thought with intention—Odette was alone with her in the dressing-room, the older girl took up the conversation again.

  “When you turned back your cloak, Gabrielle, what did Monsieur Florian do? Approve?” she enquired, with that faint smile which Anthea had noticed before.

  “Well——” Anthea began, in the most plausible manner. Then she saw that Odette, who knew Florian so much better than the others, found it impossible to believe that the whole thing had not been deliberately planned.

  “At first he did not approve, Odette. Later, I think perhaps he decided that what I did was for the best,” Anthea said.

  Odette laughed incredulously.

  “I marvel each day, mon enfant, how you contrive to remain here,” she declared. “What you are really telling me, in your demure way, is that you defied Florian in public—and survived.”

  Anthea laughed too, but she bit her lip.

  “Something like that,” she agreed.

  “It is not to be understood,” muttered Odette. “Unless he is just waiting until he finds a suitable substitute.”