“Miss Frazier has telephoned,” Madame Pearl said in the sweetest of voices and almost perfect accent. “You young ladies are to have party dresses, your first party dresses. Very simple, very chic, youthful. We must not hurry but give time to it and consideration. If you will be so kind as to come this way——”
“This way” was all down the room to a wider alcove, walled on the street by big plate-glass windows and on the two other sides by huge, perfect mirrors.
There Madame Pearl asked them to be seated. She herself sat comfortably among cushions on a little lounge. She inquired as to their favourite colours. From that the conversation expanded to their other tastes, to books, music. Elsie told about their plan for the afternoon.
“You are to see ‘The Blue Bird’!” Madame Pearl exclaimed. “That will be an experience. I myself saw it when I was about your age—its first production at the Moscow Art Theatre. I had never dreamed anything could be so beautiful. You will think so, too.” Then she added, sighing a little, “But it cannot be quite the same. Stanislavsky produced it as it never could be produced by another. It was superb.”
“You saw it, there, when it was given in Moscow that first time?” Elsie breathed, sitting on the very edge of her chair, her cheeks pink with excitement. “That was wonderful. I know, for my fa——” She stopped, bit her lip, and continued: “Someone showed me photographs of the stage sets and costumes once. I am wondering if it will be anything like that here.”
“I don’t know,” Madame Pearl replied. “But I tell you frankly I am not going to see. For the memory of our Art Theatre production is too vivid for me to want to expose it to any comparison. It was done with a richness, a depth, a true sense of mysticism—— What shall I say? It was so free of sentimentality. I confess I do not care to see it attempted again. It had an effect on me, that play. An effect that is lasting, that runs through—how shall I say?—my life.”
Elsie nodded and looked at Kate. She said, “Yes, we understand. ‘The King of the Fairies’ is like that, too.”
Kate’s heart leapt. At last those two girls had met face to face, comrades on common ground.
“‘The King of the Fairies,’” Madame Pearl murmured, reflectively. “Ah, yes. I have heard of that book. Published last year. Very beautiful, I have heard. And literary people are surprised because it is so popular. They alone, when they discovered it, expected to appreciate it and enjoy. They are a little annoyed that children and simple people and the unliterary love it, too, that it is a ‘best seller.’ I have guessed, though I have not yet read it, that that book must tap some deep wells of truth that all humanity knows, even the simple. I have a theory about art——”
There the beautiful voice ceased abruptly. Madame Pearl rose, smiling enigmatically. “This is not choosing frocks, is it?” she said. “But while we have chattered I have studied your types. I have not been idle. Shall we begin with the one of which I am the least sure? That is Miss Kate. We may have to try several frocks before we are suited for you. But I think we shall begin with an orange crêpe.”