Madame des Essarts trailed in, to discuss in what costume Merle would shine to the best advantage, at the dinner-party given in her honour that evening.
“The apricot ninon? What do you think, Nicole?”
Nicole was in favour of a quaint old-rose brocade, which suited Mademoiselle à merveille. Merle was invited to take part in the discussion. She could have indicated a startling preference for a sea-faded jersey and cap ... but she said that she preferred the brocade. Her grandmother laid cool fingers, heavily beringed, upon her head.
“Mignonne, we must call in ce bon Docteur Dufour again; you are slightly feverish. The excitement of your fête, is that it?”
Merle smiled. A doll had returned to its elaborate wrappings; a bon-bon was replaced in its satin casket; a jewel laid back in its nest of cotton-wool. Merle smiled: Yes, she was excited because it was her birthday. Nice things always happened on one’s birthday, was it not so? And murmuring benignly an epigram on la jeunesse, Madame departed to put herself in the hands of the coiffeur.
Merle lay back among the pillows, and watched Nicole laying out silk stockings and embroidered shoes; soft underwear; a string of pearls; a handkerchief edged in fine old lace; Nicole, drawing the curtains, fetching hot water.... “Good Heavens! that I should own a friend who owns a maid. You know it’s quite easy to pull on your stockings, once you’ve learnt the way”—How long would the memory of Peter’s mischievous remarks entangle themselves like alien threads through the dainty artificial pattern that must henceforth be woven only in dim pastels and misted silver?
“Mademoiselle is now ready for me to arrange her hair?” Ablutions performed, Merle slipped around her a silk kimono. The monogrammed tortoise-shell hair-brushes stood at hand on the panelled dressing-table; the room was deliciously warm, and fragrant with the scent of white lilac. Merle had enjoyed with all her heart this parade of luxury and ceremonial when it had stood as contrast to her secret life of adventure with Peter; their stolen days, their long tramps—oh, it had been fun, while roughing it, to remember Nicole and the waiting casket lined with pink.
But now the casket stood for all there was; the tortoise-shell toilet-service had to be taken seriously; and Merle’s eyes, looking back at her from the oval mirror, were wide and frightened with the knowledge that one could not laugh alone.
Mademoiselle des Essarts, in old-rose brocade and pearls, stands beside Madame in the Louis salon, and, with charming self-possession, helps to receive the entering guests. And now they have all arrived: well-known figures in foreign ministerial circles; courteous and urbane old gentlemen wearing decorations; brilliant and polished young gentlemen from the various embassies; the two daughters of the new Consul (invited because they were of Merle’s age); the elegant wives of numerous consuls; the white-haired Marchese di Salvador, whose rule it is never to make a remark that is not unpleasant; finally, a middle-aged member of the Legation, tall, kindly, and distinguished, his head already beflecked with grey: Jean Raoul Théodore, Comte de Cler, who so admires Mademoiselle des Essarts, and is enchanted to find that he is to lead her down to dinner.