“Oh, Father—really, we’re just friends,” exclaimed Anthea, remembering, as she used the term, Florian’s contempt for it.
“But you could be more if you liked just to crook your little finger,” Millicent said with a laugh.
Anthea refused to answer that, and managed to keep the conversation on less personal topics for the rest of the time she was there.
But she knew, of course, that Millicent was right. The deep, precious, intimate friendship with Roger could any day become something much more significant.
She sat by her open window, as was her wont, for a long time that evening, gazing out into the warm night sky of Paris, softly flushed with the reflection from a thousand lamps, and she tried to read her own heart and, by it, plan for her future.
Michael had gone from the scene like a half-remembered shadow, and in his place was Roger—solid, dependable, a darling—the stuff of which good husbands were made. She had only to follow out his suggestion and transfer to London when the time came in order to bring that chapter to a happy and inevitable conclusion.
And a very lucky and happy girl she would be, she knew.
To set against that her romantic, inexplicable love for the life she was now living was really rather absurd. She was not a career-girl by nature. She was not a mannequin by passionate desire. She was a girl who, by accident, had come into the crazy, fantastic, faintly unreal life at Florian’s. But the spell which the place had put upon her was complete.
The place?—If it were only the place, then any other dress house should do almost as well. There was not so much difference between them. Even in her inexperience, she knew that.
But in all the world there was no other dress house where Florian would come in—worn and impatient, smiling and indulgent, sardonic and amusing, arrogant and brilliant—in any one of the thousand moods which she had learned to watch for and know.
Who else would call her “mon enfant” and “petite” in just that way? And who else would she wish to have do it?
It was not the life that enthralled her, not even the scene alone that fascinated her. She was captivated by the tremendous, varied, inescapable personality of the man from whom all this stemmed.
And he had told her he that it a reasonable idea for her to leave and go back to England!
Odette had once declared he could be a monster. She had also spoken of his occasional quick cruelty. But Anthea felt she could have forgiven all these theoretical faults, if only he had not been so coolly, monumentally indifferent.
She told herself that her decision was made, and she went to bed and eventually to sleep, thinking that she meant this. But when she awoke next morning, she was as far as every from knowing her own mind. And that day—and for several days afterwards—she went to the salon in a turmoil of emotion and indecision.
Not that anyone suspected this for one moment. She was good-tempered and co-operative with the other girls, obedient and respectful to Madame Moisant, and almost her usual self even with Florian.
In the evenings she went out with her father and Millicent, and gave every appearance of enjoying herself with them. Sometimes they were joined by Roger, and to him she was friendly and almost affectionate, as she had always been. Only she found that, instinctively, she kept their relationship from drifting into anything approaching the romantic. Until she had resolved the chaos in her own self, she must not allow Roger to do or say anything irrevocable.
By the time she came to the last day of her father’s and Millicent’s visit, she felt that she had been under a strain for long enough. In a way, she was of course sorry to see at least her father go, but there was some relief as well in the knowledge that for them, at any rate, she would no longer have to pretend.
“Well, child, let us know your plans as soon as they are settled,” her father said; as he kissed her good-bye. “We shall be very glad to have you back again in London.”
He seemed to take it for granted that it was merely a question of time, and that in principle the decision had already been taken.
“If you want me to start looking for a nice little place for you, just let me know,” Millicent told her. “I think I know what you would like. But, if I were you, I should think twice before leaving Florian’s.”
Twice! Anthea felt she had thought two hundred times at least.
But she thanked Millicent, kissed them both, and promised to keep them informed about her plans.
It was a singularly quiet day at the salon, after all that. But in the afternoon she was called to Florian’s workroom, where he was busy on the final design for the South American girl’s trousseau—the wedding dress itself.
When Anthea came in, he was standing there, regarding several sketches, and on the work-table was a length of soft, iridescent silver tissue. No one else was in the room.
Anthea was used to this kind of work by now. It was tiring, but it was interesting. She stood there patiently, as quite often before, while he tried the effect of the gleaming material this way and that upon her. He hardly spoke to her—hardly seemed aware of her as a person at all. She was a model, so far as he was concerned—no more and no less.
And yet—memory went back to that time he had spoken of her—knowledgeably, indulgently, almost regretfully—the day Odette had accused him of being a poseur.
He had said then that she would change, Anthea remembered sadly, and that then he would no longer design wedding dresses for her in the soft, cloudy materials, but in satins and taffetas and tissues.
She glanced down at the material he was draping on her, and on impulse she said suddenly,
“Monsieur Florian, have I changed already?”
“Changed, Gabrielle?” He spoke absently, as he nearly always did when he was working. “In what way?”
“You said—once—that you would not design wedding dresses for me in the more sophisticated materials so long as I was—unknowing, was the word you used. Only when I changed.”
“This is not designed for you, petite. It is an order for a customer who requires the sophisticated materials. If I were designing for you, the wedding dress would still be in soft and cloudy materials. That is why you will soon have to tell me if you will be here for the next Collection—or in London.”
She was silent, but her heart began to beat heavily. And at last she said, with a sort of desperate candour,
“You would rather I went, wouldn’t you?”
“I have not said so.”
“But you would prefer to have Claudine?”
“I have no feeling in the matter.” His voice was suddenly completely empty of expression and, for the first time in Anthea’s knowledge of him, flat and unmusical. “I merely think that, in all the circumstances, it might be better if you transferred to London.”
Such empty phrases!
“Monsieur Florian,” she said, with almost childlike simplicity and distress, “why don’t you like me any more?”
“You are mistaken, Gabrielle. No question of liking or disliking enters into this. I only want what is best—for you.”
Again there was a short pause.
“Then suppose I say that I intend to stay?” she spoke softly, but with determination.
It was he who hesitated this time. Then he said,
“If I repeat that I think it would be better for you to go, will you please not take that for an expression of dislike.”
“Only of indifference.” She could not quite keep the note of pain and reproach out of her voice.
“Nor indifference,” he replied, standing back to see the effect of what he had been doing.
“But”—she looked fruitlessly for some sign of emotion in the pale, rather set face of the man who—she knew it suddenly—ruled her every thought and action—“if it is neither dislike nor indifference which makes you wish me to go, what is it?”
“I have said—I think it might be better for you.”
“Am I not the best judge of that?”
“No, mon enfant,�
�� he said, and suddenly he looked so disillusioned and weary that she remembered that he was thirty-eight and a man who must have done and seen many things outside her experience in his varied career.
“I don’t understand,” she told him sadly, and she drooped a little.
“Stand up straight, please. I can do nothing if you slouch like that,” he exclaimed, with barely controlled impatience.
She straightened up and bit a lip which trembled.
“Monsieur, it is not difficult to see that you truly want me to go. It seems I can do nothing to please you.”
“Be quiet,” he said harshly. “You know I cannot work if you talk. This is all wrong.” And, coming over to her, he flicked the shining material off her and started again.
She swallowed hard and wished she dared to touch him. He seemed so far away in everything but actual fact. But there was a long silence while he worked. Then he stood back, walked the length of the room away from her and said,
“Now—walk towards me.”
Some shutter clicked in her brain, and for a moment she was back in that incredible scene when he had first come into the salon and found her there with Madame Moisant.
“That was the first thing you ever said to me,” she told him, almost in a whisper. “‘Walk towards me,’ you said, ‘as though you liked me.’ And I did, monsieur. And I liked you from that moment. I thought you liked me too, but now you send me away because——”
“My God, do you want it from me in words of one syllable?” he exclaimed, in a tone of suppressed passion. “I am sending you away because I love you—I adore every damned thing about you. The way you look at me, smile at me, reproach me, flatter me, berate me, lecture me—— Everything you do is a tormenting joy to me. I love you and I’m fifteen years too old for you, and a hundred years too old in experience. When you were a baby, I probably already knew more of life than you’ll ever know. Go home to the life you know, marry your confoundedly worthy Roger, with whom you confidingly hold hands, and remain the happy innocent, unknowing creature God meant you to be.”
“But——”
“There’s no need for you to explain or protest or even comment. Do you think I didn’t see what it meant to you to quarrel with him?—and still more, what it meant to make it up with him? I have not often in my life held my hand when I wanted something, but this time I want someone else’s happiness more than my own. I thought I was too cynical—too worldly—ever to drop to such depths of sentiment. But I will even make the final gesture”—and suddenly he gave her his very beautiful smile—“I will make your wedding dress for you, chérie. But do not ask me to your wedding.”
She had stood where she was throughout this long speech, only once making the attempt to interrupt him. Then, as he smiled at her, she too smiled—the radiant, tremulous, incredible smile which had made his wedding dress famous.
“Florian,” she said—and the curious use of this as though it were his Christian name made him go suddenly pale—“when I first wore your wedding dress you told me to look as though the man I wished to marry were there before me. I don’t know how I looked——Darling, I don’t know what I have to do, for it isn’t make-believe any longer. It’s so real—so real—that all the technique is gone—even the words——” She stopped suddenly and just held out her arms to him.
In a second she was in his arms and he was kissing her. Not the light, tender kind of kiss he had given her once before, but quick, passionate kisses that had almost the quality of pain in them. Then he held her a little away from him, looked at her with curiously shining eyes and said softly, “My God, I have not deserved her.”
They were probably the only truly humble words Florian ever uttered.
He could not let her go, after that—could not hear enough that she had loved him all the time and not “the worthy Roger” as he insisted on calling his rival.
“Poor Roger—I hope he was not too fond of me,” she exclaimed remorsefully. But Florian said with cheerful callousness that someone must always lose.
“At least we never quite reached the romantic stage,” she murmured, her conscience still troubling her.
He looked down at her and smiled.
“You mean I have not many kisses to resent on his behalf?”
“None.”
“None? Then he will get over you.”
“But would you have got over me, if I had gone with him?”
“You forget, petite, that I had already kissed you—once.”
“That didn’t seem to count much,” she objected.
“No?” He laughed softly. “I assure you it was the moment when I was lost.”
“Oh—my dear.” She leant her forehead against his shoulder, and he gathered her close, silver tissue and all.
“Are you really going to marry me?” He touched her bright hair with his lips. “You know I’m years too old for you, don’t you?”
“Not if you love me.”
“And that you might well be happier with a better, less difficult man?”
“Are you trying to make me change my mind?” she asked with a smile, and she put her hand lightly against his cheek, as she had longed—and feared—to do only ten minutes before.
“No.” He turned his head and kissed the palm of her hand. “I only want you to know what you are taking on.”
“I do know,” she said slowly. “Believe me, I do know. I am not quite so unsophisticated as you think. I am aware that I might marry a—better, if you like—a more ordinary man, and be pleasantly and uniformly content. I should never know the occasional misery which I may possibly know with you——”
“Oh, no!” he said quickly.
“—but I should also never know the rapture which you alone can mean for me. One must choose, Florian—one must choose. And I have chosen you, my darling—with my eyes open.”
He held her then and kissed her—until Mademoiselle Charlotte looked in to ask something, and permitted herself the luxury of a small shriek of surprise and scandalized delight.
“Come in, mademoiselle.” Florian looked round and addressed her courteously. “Come in and congratulate me. Gabrielle has just promised to marry me, and we shall have to discuss the most important wedding dress this firm has ever made.”
Mademoiselle Charlotte came slowly into the room, murmuring her astonished phrases of congratulation. And, in her bright, knowing, already respectful glance, Anthea suddenly saw herself reflected, not as Gabrielle, but as Madame Florian.
There was no question of keeping it a secret after that, even temporarily. It was essential that Madame Moisant should know within the same hour as Mademoiselle Charlotte, unless a major crisis were to be precipitated.
Florian himself came down with Anthea—first to tell the faintly amused and not entirely surprised Madame Moisant—and then to make his own characteristic announcement to her immediate colleagues.
“You will perhaps like to know that Claudine is returning to us,” he said, “since Gabrielle will be leaving to become my wife.”
There was immediately pandemonium, everyone crowding round Anthea, congratulating, exclaiming, questioning and—already—making suggestions about her trousseau.
For a few minutes Florian stood there with her, smiling, indulgent, indescribably relaxed, as she had never seen him before. Then his secretary looked in to say that he was wanted on the telephone from Lyons and, with a glance at his tyrannical watch, he said,
“I will see you later, pétite. The South American’s wedding dress must wait today. But I shall need you at ten tomorrow. Ten sharp.”
“Yes, monsieur,” she said, from force of habit. At which he took her by the chin and kissed her in front of them all, before he went out, laughing a little to himself.
“It is well that he is making an honest woman of you,” observed Héloïse, casting her congratulations in characteristic form.
“It is well that you are making a happy man of him,” Odette countered. “I have not seen Florian look like th
at before.”
Anthea smiled, but she did not answer either of them. In spirit she was already taking leave of the room where she had known such hope and fear, such misery and joy. Claudine would take her place here again, to laugh and flirt, lounge, pirouette and pose. But none of that mattered any longer. In all that mattered she was now for ever part of Florian’s. Her choice was made.
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