‘Ah! but if one be fair and young and juicy ’tis the transparent point de Venise that is best accordant with one’s humour,’ interrupted the mercer, with a wink at Madeleine. ‘’Tis the point de Venise that discovers the breasts, Mademoiselle! Which, being so, I vow the names should be reversed, and the transparent fabric be called point de Gênes, hein? Point de gêne!’ and he gleefully chuckled over his own wit, while his wife gave him a good-natured push and told him with a grin not to be a fool.
‘Whatever laces you may stock, good sir, no one can with truth affirm that you have—point d’Esprit,’ said Madeleine graciously.
‘Come, my child!’ said Madame Troqueville, with a smile, and prepared to move away. This put the mercer on his mettle.
‘Ladies, you would be well advised to tarry a while with me!’ he cried, in the tones of a disinterested adviser. ‘Decked in these delicate toys you would presently learn how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. Let a lady be of any form or any quality, after a visit to my stall she’d look a Marquise!’
‘Nay, say rather that she’d look a Duchesse,’ amended his wife.
‘Come, my child!’ said Madame Troqueville again.
‘Nay, lady, there is good sense in what I say!’ pleaded the mercer, ‘the very pith of modishness is in my stall. A galant of gay ribbons, and a fichu of fine point—such as this one, for example—in fact the trifling congeries which in the dress of gallants is known as “petite oie” will lend to the sorriest sarge the lustre of velvet!’
Madeleine’s eyes were blazing with excitement. God had come to her rescue once again, and forgoing, with the economy of the true artist, the meretricious aid of a material miracle, had solved her problem in the simplest manner by the agency of this little mercer. To cut a brave figure on Thursday, there was no need of Fortunatus’s purse. Her eyes had been opened. Of course, as in manners, so in dress, the days of solidity were over. Who now admired the heavy courtesy of the school of the Admiral de Bassompière in comparison with the careless, mocking grace of the air galant? In the same way, she, twirling a little cane in her hand, motley with ribbons, her serge bodice trimmed with the pierreries du Temple (of which, by the way, more anon), with some delicate trifles from the mercer’s stall giving a finish to the whole, could with a free mind, allow three-piled velvet and strangely damasked silk to feed the moths in the brass-bound, leather chests that slumber in châteaux, far away mid the drowsy foison of France.
With strange, suppressed passion, she pleaded with her mother, first, for a Holland handkerchief, edged with Brussels lace, and caught up at the four corners by orange-coloured ribbon; then for a pair of scented gloves, also hung with ribbons; then for a bag of rich embroidery for carrying her money and her Book of Hours. And Madame Troqueville, under the spell of Madeleine’s intense desire, silently paid for one after another.
They left the mercer’s stall, having spent three times over the coin that Madame Troqueville had dedicated to the Troguins’s ball. Suddenly, she realised what had happened, and cried out in despair:—