They put up at a fashionable hotel, and Clara spent a busy time. She did not waste it in sight-seeing. When she was in Paris before she had never visited the Louvre, or Fontainebleau, or Versailles, nor did she go to them now. She preferred the shops; she went to them often and with good effect. Her intention was, if possible, to reconstruct herself. She had saved some money of her own, and she now spent it freely. It was necessary for her, as Tarbot’s wife, to make a good appearance. So she went from shop to shop choosing clothes, and choosing well. Her husband never accompanied her, and she was all the better pleased at this. She had a greater opportunity of doing what she meant to do.
Hour by hour and day by day the woman was changing. She shed her vulgarity as if it were a skin which was useless. She went to the best hairdresser to have her hair arranged. She was told that she had lovely hair—quite the fashionable tone. She got the most expensive lotions to bring out its brilliancy. She bought additional hair at a fabulous price, to pile on her head to add to the richness of her locks, which, in color perfect, were in quantity a little scanty. She also purchased cosmetics, which she applied night and morning to her freckled face. The cosmetics did nothing for the freckles, but she fancied they did. She bought the finest black lace, and many garments trimmed with jet, and soft sweeping robes, mostly black. And Tarbot found out by degrees that he was not ashamed to walk with Clara, and that people turned to look at her.
“What is the matter with you?” he said one day.
“Why do you ask? Don’t you like my dress?”
“I like it too well—I should not know you in it.”
Clara smiled. Tarbot went on gazing at her critically.
“You have a good figure,” he said; “a very good figure. I had no idea of it when I married you. I did not know you were so tall, or that you had such a small waist. Your hips are well developed, too, and your shoulders are good—you are a finely proportioned woman. If you were not so thin you might even be handsome.”
While he paid her these compliments she longed passionately for him to give her one affectionate glance; but this he had never considered in the bargain, and certainly did not intend to bestow.
When Clara had purchased her wardrobe, finally buying an evening dress from Worth, who studied her good figure and peculiar face, and made her a robe which was afterwards talked about in more than one London drawing-room, she told her husband that it was time to return home.
“But the fortnight is not up yet,” he said.