The minute Cynthia saw her, her artist’s eye registered her as the one model for that Christmas cover. Such pansy-brown eyes, such soft curls around the little pink-cheeked face, such a dimpled round chin above the starched white collar and the tight little bodice, like a small child playing at grown-up.
Cynthia nodded her approval of Nancy’s choice. “How nice,” she thought, “to be with artists again. Oh, I wish they could be with me all over France,” remembering her loneliness in Paris.
After the service they edged their way toward the door, Cynthia keeping the child in sight all the way. The little girl’s mother, who walked behind her, was a larger edition of the same type and must have been lovely when she was young, but was now bent and weary eyed, like so many of the hard working Breton peasants.
Nancy’s eyes had been roving the church. Now she gave Cynthia a reassuring nod. “Wait for me outside,” she commanded and wriggled away through the crowd. Cynthia, who was taller than most of the villagers, saw her stop at last before a woman in black and wearing a hat. Their own patronne from the hotel, very much in her Sunday best. Nancy waved to Cynthia, then the two disappeared, blotted out by the congregation.
Five minutes later she joined Cynthia in the little square above the fountain. “It’s all right,” she reported triumphantly. “We identified your model and her mother, and Madame says she will ask her about posing.”
That was fine. Cynthia already saw her cover, painted, delivered, printed, and exhibited on every Christmas news stand in New York. She drew a breath of relief.
They strolled back toward the hotel and the pleasant smell of Sunday dinner, the crowd slowly trickling away behind them. The little bakery was already doing a brisk business, for many of these small shops opened as soon as the church was out. Cynthia’s eyes caught a new poster on the bakery wall, a single sheet of vivid lemon yellow with blue and red type, such a bright patch of color in the pearly gray street that she hauled Nancy along to look at it.
“Well ...” after a minute of Nancy’s silent contemplation. “What does it say, stupid? Can’t you read out loud, the way you were taught?”
Nancy chuckled. “Sorry, I forgot. Well, ‘Hypnotiste’ means ‘Hypnotist.’”
“I gathered as much as that. What comes after it?”