“He did.”
“He?”
“The American monsieur, of course.”
“Oh, the American monsieur, of course! So, monsieur permits himself to observe that I need a wardrobe? But you, Berthe, you surely did not––”
“Oh, no, madame! I knew nothing, till just now, when the woman brought them. The monsieur ordered them yesterday, 194she said. And naturally, madame, if he could have found better material, I do not doubt––”
“There, child, I’ll not be reproached by your even thinking it necessary to defend––”
“And madame will see, too, that they will do nicely.” She spread the frocks on the bed, and began snipping here and there with the scissors and taking stitches everywhere. “By letting it out this way–voilà, if madame will kindly slip it on?”
“Berthe, you can’t mean–Oh nonsense!”
None the less the skirt passed over her head, and the maid’s deft fingers kept on busily. “And why not?” she talked as she worked, “unless one likes rags better. And who will see? Only men. Poof, those citizens do not know percale from a Parisian toilette.”
Jacqueline began to wax angry with the quiet tyranny of it. She looked at the horror and shuddered, then with both hands pushed the calico to the floor, gathering up her own lawn skirt instead. It was rather a woebegone lawn skirt. She gazed ruefully at the garment, then down at the blue flowering heaped about her ankles. Berthe, kneeling over the dress, raised her eyes. The puckered brow of her mistress spelled fury, and the maid tried not to laugh, at which Jacqueline stamped her foot. “Berthe,” she cried, “shall I slap you?”