“Oh, I suppose so,” said Félicie, and retired to the closet to change; “but you know how it looks in the rain!”
When they were duly arrayed in filmy pink and blue, they presented themselves to Madame Durant for approval. She always liked to see Félicie before she went out anywhere, to criticize or approve her costume—usually to command changes, which was a sore trial to Félicie, as refutation into an ear-trumpet is as futile as it is disagreeable.
Madame Durant approved their “simple dresses” at first, then when they were ordered to “turn around,” remarked accusingly that she could see right through them, and they must each put on another good, thick petticoat.
Joy and Félicie exchanged glances of despair. If there is anything a girl hates, it is a good, thick petticoat. But the ear-trumpet ruled, and they retired to bolster themselves out. Since Joy had been associated with Madame Durant, she had made allowances for many of Félicie’s characteristics. When they were starting out of the door, the penetrating voice that deaf people often acquire recalled them. Those little light coats weren’t enough. They must take long, dark coats and umbrellas. Félicie started to crumple, then remembered her starched dress and compressed her emotion into a waver.
“It’s bad enough to go not knowing how the weather’s going to act, but to go dressed piebald!”
But they muffled themselves up properly, and with a final interlude of feeding the dog so that Madame Durant would not have it to do later, they were off. Félicie had refused to enter a street car in light things. “They’ll think we’re shop-girls just back from the Park, you know they will!” And so they had indulged in the formal luxury of a taxi.
“I suppose auntie was wise about those coats,” Félicie said; “but I do hate to encourage her in anything.”
“It seems so strange to have an older woman supervise one’s clothes,” said Joy. “I suppose that’s because my mother died when I was so little, and father never wanted anyone to take her place—he wouldn’t even have a housekeeper.”
“Most girls would have been pretty queer, living that way. You were lucky to have come through it all right.”
“But did I?” Joy wondered, as Félicie turned to peer out of the window at the smug blue sky. She had dismissed the subject.