“Does your friend live far away?” said Regina to Madame Clementine.
“No, not very far, just three streets away. It is une vraie artiste—no great price, she is not known. By-and-bye she will be—unattainable, excepting to her old clients. Antoinette, write down the address of Madame d’Estelle. And when you have arranged your gowns with her, you will come back to me for suitable toques?”
“Yes,” said Regina, “I will put myself unreservedly in your hands. I feel you are a woman of taste, an artiste. I frankly confess that I am—not.”
It was with many wreathed smiles, becks and bows and assurances of welcome when she should come again that Regina was finally allowed to return to The Dressing-Room for the tea which was waiting her. Finally, after having written a cheque for her preliminary treatments, she found herself walking along Berners Street in the direction of Oxford Street, and a feeling took possession of her that, after all, fashionable women knew what they were doing when they patronized private establishments. She had heard of them, because details of dress had not wholly ebbed by leaving her high and dry on the shore of high principle, devoid of the herbage of feminine grace. She had heard that no well-dressed woman, no really well-dressed woman, would ever get her clothes at a shop, and her keen and busy brain turned over the subject as she walked away from The Dressing-Room. After all, she had learned much during her years at the helm of the Society for the Regeneration of Women, and she had learned, above all things, to set a true value on the quality which is called individualism. She had learned that you cannot herd humanity with success, and she was now learning that you cannot dress humanity en bloc. She felt a curious shyness as she caught sight of her unaccustomed appearance in the shop windows as she passed, and once she stopped as she was walking along Oxford Street, at a large furniture establishment, and looked at herself searchingly. Yes, in spite of the feeling of looseness about her head which worried her not a little, she could see the intense becomingness of the new way in which her hair was arranged. It was then after five o’clock, but she steadily pursued her way in search of Madame d’Estelle. I need not go into the details of her visit. Madame d’Estelle made short work of her new client.
“Yes, madame,” she said, “you want a little frock built for that toque. Well, leave it to me, leave it to me; I will make you a little frock—say ten guineas? (Take madame’s measure.) While they take your measurements I will walk round and study you. You will come again in three days for a fitting, then, if it is necessary you will come again three days after that, then in three days more you will have your frock. I will make you something consistent with your personality—it will be a little black frock, nothing very important, but it will give us a sufficient start. (Write, madame, a note—ten guineas—and the day of the fitting.) Leave yourself to me, madame, it will be all right.”
Then Regina went home. She felt that everybody in the Park was looking at her. So they were, for the story had gone round that Mrs. Whittaker had become a little wrong in her head. The story had been going round that she had been seen walking up the road in her nightgown and many variations of it had already found credence. “Have you heard the news? That Mrs. Whittaker of Ye Dene has gone off her dot.” “Oh, my dear!” “Well, Charley says he met her walking up the road in her nightgown.” “Oh, nonsense.” “Well, that’s what I said, but Charley met her himself.” “Was she walking in her sleep?” “Charley didn’t seem to think so.” Then a little later, “You know Mrs. Whittaker of Ye Dene, they’re saying she’s got a tile off.” “Well, I always did think she was a peculiar kind of woman; no woman would dress like that who was altogether right in her head.” “Yes, but I didn’t think she was as bad as that. Why! she, the President of some society for making new women. Who says she’s got a tile off?” “Well, my sister was at the Wingfield-Jacksons’ yesterday, and Mrs. Jackson told her that Charley had seen her walking up the road in her nightgown, so she must be quite dotty, you know.” A few days after the story spread still further. “You’ve heard the latest, of course.” “No, I’ve heard nothing particular, most people are away.” “They’ve taken poor Mrs. Whittaker away to a lunatic asylum.” “Oh, my dear, you don’t say so. What for?” “Well, I suppose she’s gone out of her mind. Perhaps the wedding, the fuss—so many presents—ah, I thought at the time they were rather over-doing it.” “But I thought she was such a strong-minded woman.” “Ah, but don’t you think there’s always something abnormal about these strong-minded women. Just as my Harry said when he told me—he got it from the club, of course; all the gossip in the place comes from the club—as he said, it’s all very well to take women out of their rightful sphere and let them regenerate the world, but it doesn’t pay; that that’s just how we ordinary women, who haven’t got souls above our natural duties, may take comfort to ourselves.” “When did it happen?” “I don’t know, but when they were supposed to go abroad she was taken away to a lunatic asylum. They say she’s at Bolitho House, and I did hear that she is kept in a padded room.” “But, my dear,” said the other woman, “just turn your eyes to the window. There’s Mrs. Whittaker walking down the road with her hair dressed a new way and the smartest hat on her head that I’ve ever seen in my life!” “Well, I never!”