"I think he'd sit up at night and go without meals by day to work for you," replied Miss Marks. "It would be such an advertisement. And he loves working for pretty people."
"Well, I love helping geniuses." Marise modestly accepted the compliment. "Didn't you say his flat is on your floor?"
Miss Marks answered that this was the case. Valinski would move to a fashionable neighbourhood some day. At present his talent budded in 85th Street.
"I wish I could go to him myself," sighed Marise. "I can't now, for I'm so hard-worked and tired. But I thought mother might take a taxi after lunch next Sunday and choose a design for a tea-gown—his specialty, you said. Would he see her on Sunday—about a quarter to three, so she could get back for her friends?"
Miss Marks was certain of Valinski's consent. She would come for Mrs. Sorel, if that would suit, and take her to the dressmaker. Marise thought it would suit: and Mums, arriving at that moment dressed for the day, an appointment was made.
The life of Marise Sorel was so full, the pattern of each day so gaily embroidered with emotions and incidents, that she was surprised at her own excitement. She did not, however, try to quench it. She loved to feel that, in spite of the adulation she received, one side of her nature was as fresh, as unspoiled, as a child's. And she was as guiltily pleased as a child when, at twenty minutes before three on Sunday afternoon, her mother went down to a waiting taxi with Zélie Marks. Patronising the Pole and choosing a design would eat up an hour, Marise had calculated.
She had put on a white dress of the simplicity whose price is beyond rubies. Her hair was in a great gleaming knot of gold at the nape of her neck. She looked about sixteen, and felt it. When the bell of the telephone rang at three minutes before three, she thrilled all over.
"A gentleman asking for Mademoiselle. He says he has an appointment," announced Céline at the 'phone.
"Any name?" Marise inquired.
Céline put her lips to the instrument, the receiver to her ear. "The gentleman has given no name, because he is expected. But if Mademoiselle wishes that I insist——?"