My Lady's Dress
Madame requires a gown. In a building high up above a celebrated street in the heart of London, M. Flair bows her to a gold couch on which are green velvet cushions.
M. Flair has descended with dignity and charm to middle age, and every one seems to forgive him for smelling rather like an overworked jasmine grove. This apartment with the gold and black striped cushions, the dove-grey walls, the black carpet, the green jade hangings, and its scent like that of Paris is not a shop: it is a salon. If you pulled out a bunch of crackling fivers and offered in an honest straightforward way to pay M. Flair for one of his gowns—I mean "creations"—he would, I imagine, feel insulted. He would much rather sue you in the usual way. He is an artist. Lady So-and-So blazons his genius along the Côte d'Azur; Miss So-and-So does him credit on the stage, so that, as he bends over Madame, cooing slightly, the tips of his manicured fingers together, there is no condescension in him. Oh, dear, no! He is a psychologist.
Madame requires a gown.
It must, I fear, be said that Madame has been requiring gowns for well over forty years, and, lately, requiring them shorter in the skirt, with an ever-increasing touch of springtime over them. So M. Flair, after lightly discussing the season in the south of France and dismissing Switzerland with a shrug, whispers a word to a sylph in black and—more bowing—offers Madame a small brown Russian cigarette.
* * *
"Charming! delicious ... ah, exquisite!"
These words come lightly from Madame as the grey curtains part at the end of the room, and there dawn, swaying slightly, hands on narrow hips, several visions of beauty clothed, it seems, too perfectly from their neat, sharp shoes to their tight little hats.
One mannequin is fair, another is dark, a third is petite, a fourth is tall. Each one is the perfection of her type—too perfect. As each sways up to Madame over the black carpet she gives Madame one half-smiling look in the eyes, then turns, lingers, sways a little, and slowly goes. Sometimes Madame puts out a hand and touches a gown. The mannequin stands like a piece of machinery suddenly stopped. All the time M. Flair remains with one plump hand on the gold couch, explaining, expounding, and, at length, advising. Here we have thin ice. Dangerous ice. M. Flair knows Madame's age and the lines of her figure. Madame has forgotten the first and has never really appreciated the second. This is where M. Flair earns his money. Just as he is bringing her—oh, so cleverly—away from a May-time gown to one nearer August, the curtains part, and into the scented room glides a Golden Girl—sweet as April sun.
Ah, now we approach the comedy; now the plot thickens; now Madame permits the white ash of her slim brown cigarette to fall unnoticed on the black floor. That splendid, cunning fall of the cloth, revealing that which it professes to cover; that fine swing of rounded hips; those beautiful young arms, unmasked at the elbow with no wicked little wizened witch's face time puts there. Yes; a lovely gown! Madame looks at April and—sees herself!
M. Flair knows that the game is up. He realizes, with the instinct of a lifetime's experience, that no matter what he can say Madame will have nothing but the unsuitable magnificence worn by this most marvellous of mannequins. The artist in him wars with the business man. He feels that he should forbid it. Refuse to sell. Explain to Madame that she will not look like the Golden Girl; that she is deluding herself. Yet why?
Madame, with a woman's swift knowledge of unspoken things, says:
"So you think it's a bit too—too young?"
She appears frank, careless; but there is such a touch of hardiness in her voice, velvet over steel. It is a challenge to M. Flair to say "Yes," and what man would have the moral courage?
"My dear lady," he says with uplifted hands. "What a ridiculous idea!"
Then, when she has gone, he says to me: "You see how it is—O mon Dieu!"
* * *
"Yes, but the Golden Girl," I say. "How did anything so beautiful happen in the world? The racehorse lines of her, the slimness, the strength. Is she one of these exiled princesses? She must stand on a pyramid of good breeding."
"Oh, no," replies M. Flair; "her father was, I believe, a coal-porter somewhere in London. If only her accent were a little better she might ... the stage ... success ... but—O mon Dieu, these women who do not know themselves!"
So ends an ordinary little comedy of a London day.