Then old Angelique broke in upon his thought, and claimed attention with: "The cloak, now, Mr. Thrall—the cloak for the visit to old Laurence's cell? Shall it be black or brown or gray?"
"Gray!" he answered, readily. "Dark gray, I think, gives a hint of mystery. Though, 'tis true, Juliet seeks the Friar with her parents' knowledge, still it is with secret purpose. So gray and very large and full and hooded, Nonna Angelique, so that a young maid might slip like a shadow by high walls and through Verona's streets to the cloisters of the convent without revealing a trace of beauty or of rich attire."
"C'est bon! c'est bon!" nodded Lefebvre, taking a prodigious pinch of snuff, and entering in a greasy little note-book "One large, gray, circle cloak, hooded"—"c'est bon!"
On Angelique's four fingers her grimy thumb checked off "Cloak for Friar's cell—gray. Chamber scene—white, of course, but flowing, loose, long, light as air. For tomb—white also, but heavy, rich, eh? The satin gown for County Paris bride, and only one spot of color, eh? The jewelled sheath of the dagger, at the waist. Oh, yes! oh, yes! all that is clear, but—but, my Mr. Manager, how shall it be for the ball—for that first time to meet the Romeo—eh?"
She pursed her lips, she scratched her forehead thoughtfully, and so pushed her false front over to a most rakish angle. But the old man shuffled across the room, and with a: "Permettez that I correct the coiffure, my Angelique! It have slide, and it make a little of what you call the—the 'jaky' look! That way—so!" And with the palms of both hands he calmly replaced the foxy-red front, and the search for a color suitable for the first act went on.
Thrall, drawing his hand lightly across the loosened folds of many webs, over purples, mauves, ambers, with a snapping accompaniment of "No! no! no!" paused, by merest chance, at a delicate blue brocade, at which Angelique almost shrieked: "No! no!—I say no! Pretty? Yes, mais too calm—cool—collected—obedient! Ah, bah! A fool color! What, that amber would become her? Hear you that, old man?" She appealed to Lefebvre with up-cast hands: "Y-es, and it would be Spanish in effect! Oh, what is it that we want?"
The old man squinted up his eyes, and, studying Sybil, answered: "Something happy, v-e-r-y happy! Something like a flower, a-a very early flower—but what?"
And Thrall, who had caught the old snuff-taker's idea, asked, quickly: "Why not the blossom of the peach? That's early!"
"God bless the man!" cried Nonna Angelique, throwing her arms about him in frantic demonstration of delight. "It is the coup-de-grâce! The pinks, mon mari! vite! vite done! Vraiment you have the head still! A happy color, said you!"
She threw out a fold of satin her husband offered: "Non! non! it is too deep—too common!" Another: "Bah! too pale, but mere flesh color!" A beautiful bright pink brocade next was tried. "Oh, non! non!" she almost cried from disappointment; "too-'er, too-'er!" In despair she resorted to pantomime to help make her meaning clear, and, catching up her skimpy alpaca skirt, she danced a wild step or two, saying: "Too comme-ça! too what you call 'frisky,' eh? You feel me, what I mean? But that sweet, first flowering thing—that soft promise of the spring, that peach-blossom pink, that would make this dark girl beautiful—can I not find it, then?" She beat her breast with Gallic despair. Lefebvre clutched his few hairs, and apparently pulled up a memory, and cried: "One chance more! The old chest with Eastern things! India, China, Japan!" He disappeared—he lost a shoe, but left it lying till he came back, and slid into it in passing. Some rolls were cast down, soft, non-crackling paper removed, and, with cries of joy and gurgles of delight, Nonna Angelique flung out, fold upon fold, a silky crêpe of so pure and true a peach-blossom pink that the petals of the flower itself scattered over it could hardly have been perceived.