Fanny followed Reherrey to a newly-polished counter, backed by rows of empty shelves. They had no black bombazine.
"Black tulle," said Reherrey, with his air of cool indifference, "black gauze, black cotton…"
It had to be black sateen in the end. "Now you!" said Reherrey, when he had bought six yards at eight francs a yard.
"White … something … for me."
There was white nothing under sixteen francs a yard. "But cheap, cheap, CHEAP stuff," she expostulated—"stuff you would make lampshades of, or dusters. It's only for a fancy dress." The idle little girls assumed a special air. Fanny looked round the shop in desperation. It was like all the shops in Metz—the window dressed, the saleswomen ready, the shelves scrubbed out and polished, the lady waiting at the pay desk—but the goods hadn't come!
Here and there a shelf held a roll or two of some material, and eventually Fanny bought seven yards of white soft stuff at seven francs a yard.
"White," said Reherrey, with a critical look; "how English!"
Fanny had an idea of her own.
"Wo," she said heavily to Elsa's mother still later in the evening, "ist eine Schneiderin?"
"A dressmaker who speaks French…."