"I will pay double."
"Impossible!"
"Treble!"
"I would willingly give it to madame, as it pleases her fancy, but I cannot; it was designed according to sketches sent to me."
"Tush!" I impatiently exclaimed; "make a duplicate."
"It is impossible, madame, for the dress is for the same bal masqué that you will attend."
"And for whom?" I superciliously queried, for I was beside myself with vexation. "Some nobody who has secured a card by chance, and wishes to be thought a princess in disguise, eh?"
"I make for no such people," Madame Virot exclaimed, with a reflection of my own annoyance. "The dress is for the Countess Zarfine. If madame will suggest something else—"
I turned my eyes from the dress that tormented me, and racked my brains for something that should excel its splendor, but the idea came not, and with a contemptuous glare I faced the inoffensive milliner, who had tried to please me for years, and had never more than half succeeded.
"To be original nowadays," I said, indifferently, "is, after all, so commonplace, that to be commonplace is to be original. I will go as 'Carmen.'"