He felt like a child who had stolen a fiddle, unable to play on it, tired of it, afraid to return it, and wavering for a moment ere he throws it into the nearest ditch. It was ten o’clock in the morning.
“So,” continued Célestin, putting the lark back in its cage, “I am going to make some money.”
Her head was full of echoes begotten of Toto’s words last night, “I am very poor,” and plans begotten of the echoes. She had all her life been well-to-do; by some special provision of God’s, instead of her seeking work, work had always stolen to seek her fingers; the winds had blown tulle and artificial roses across her path; Mme. Hümmel had supplied her with foundations, and art had done the rest.
So it was a new sensation to hear the wolf scratch at the door, rather fearful, yet almost pleasurable: for was not Toto with her, and so long as they loved each other what did anything matter?
She had three hats finished—four, in fact, but only three for sale. For the fourth was the one she had made that morning,—the morning of the honeymoon,—and it was not for sale. She could not think of allowing another woman to wear it, so she put it on her head, determining to wear it herself.
She had on a dress of lilac-colored nun’s cloth. She made the three hats up in a parcel, and then drew on a pair of lilac-colored gloves.
“How grand Mme. Hümmel will think I have become!” said Célestin, as she departed.
Even the old Rue de Perpignan looked young this morning. It was a blissful and dreamy day; heavy showers had fallen in the early morning, leaving a perfume in the air, faint, as if from the gardens of Paradise.
She reached Verral’s in the Rue St. Honoré without any surprising adventure, and entered by the side door that leads to the workrooms. These lay behind the showrooms, the buzz and murmur of which penetrated the thin partitions dividing the one from the other. The atmosphere was warm and filled with that oppressive smell which comes from millinery in a mass. Size, varnish, and glue contributed their odors, whilst the air vibrated with the whir of sewing machines from the rooms above.