Before dinner he rapped at her door. “Joan, will you do me a favor?”
A pause, then, in her sweet, vibrant voice, she answered, “I’d be doin’ anything fer you, Mr. Gael.”
“Then, put on these things for dinner instead of your own clothes, will you?”
She opened the door and he piled into her arms a mass of shining silk, on top of it a pair of gorgeous Chinese slippers.
“Do it to please me, even if you think it makes you look queer, will you, Joan?”
“Of course,” she smiled, looking up from the gleaming, sliding stuff into his face. “I’d like to, anyway. Dressing-up—that’s fun.”
And she shut the door.
She spread the silk out on the bed and found it a loose robe of dull blue, embroidered in silver dragons and lined with brilliant rose. There was a skirt of this same rose-colored stuff. In one weighted pocket she found a belt of silver coins and a little vest of creamy lace. There were rose silk stockings stuffed into the shoes. Joan eagerly arrayed herself. She had trouble with the vest, it was so filmy, so vaguely made, it seemed to her, and to wear it at all she had to divest herself altogether of the upper part of her coarse underwear. Then it seemed to her startlingly inadequate even as an undergarment. However, the robe did go over it, and she drew that close and belted it in. It was provided with long sleeves and fell to her ankles. She thrilled at the delightful clinging softness of silk stockings and for the first time admired her long, round ankles and shapely feet. The Chinese slippers amused her, but they too were beautiful, all embroidered with flowers and dragons.
She felt she must look very queer, indeed, and went to the mirror. What she saw there surprised her because it was so strange, so different. Pierre had not dealt in compliments. His woman was his woman and he loved her body. To praise this body, surrendered in love to him, would have been impossible to the reverence and reserve of his passion.
Now, Joan brushed and coiled her hair, arranging it instinctively, but perhaps a little in imitation of that queer picture that had looked to her so hideous. Then, starting toward the door at Wen Ho’s announcement of “Dinner, lady,” she was quite suddenly overwhelmed by shyness. From head to foot for the first time in all her life she was acutely conscious of herself.