The opening night of the opera, Julie was the centre of attraction. She had taken the family jewels out of the safe deposit. A great cluster of diamonds set in antique silver shone on her velvet bodice of old wine, a glittering aigrette in her hair which was no longer an old gray—treatment had changed it into the mat silver which one sees on the head of a marble statue, with life added to its charm. She stood in the box in her velvet wrap; Floyd took it off with a feeling of excitement. He felt the sensation she created; he was running a blooded mare for the first prize.
Maud sat in front with Tom Dillon. She had played her last trump in the game of matrimony. It: wasn’t a King now, but a Knave who cared for her; she was sure of that. For the rest, she looked into her mirror and saw her future; it spelt wrinkles.
“Who is that gorgeous creature?”
“Don’t you know your friend Julie Garrison?” She put up her lorgnette.
“What has she done with her hair?”
“Bleached it. Catch up, Maudy. A celebrated cocotte in Paris has made white hair the rage; she looks like one, doesn’t she?”
“Yes, she does—wonderful. I always said Julie had great possibilities; there’s something about her that attracts men. Look at Martin.”
He was standing against a post opposite the box. His eyes fastened on Julie, his mouth twisted into a derisive smile; the Colonel was there pouring out his usual compliments. Men were coming in and out, old club friends of Floyd’s, all eager to renew their acquaintance. Julie’s illness had upset all his calculations, but there was one cause for satisfaction: she had wanted him, he had saved her, she belonged to him, not Floyd. He was waiting for a propitious moment; she must tell Floyd the truth. He waited because he was not sure of her; after a long siege of fever, the blood cools off.
He dropped in one day at Hippolyte’s Parlor—he went there now to hear about Julie. “Madame was going to have a dinner party,”—he had made a supreme effort. The phenomenon of her hair had given him a great deal of thought. He was in his way a scientist; the psychic side of it interested him. “You must see her superb hair; it suits her to perfection. It gives the last touch of that ‘Je ne sais quoi’ which she lacked. It was caused in my opinion by some intense subconscious passion.” Martin bent over eagerly. “A psychic power which acts like the eruption of a volcano; it tears her, agonizes her, she struggles with it, is not quite able to translate it—yet— Her husband is a nice fellow, mais vous savez, Puritanism, the narrow path; he’ll never deceive her, nor pardon her if she deceives him. That little house is no frame for a woman like her. She needs life, sparkle, passion—Voila tout!”
During the next few months Hippolyte’s mademoiselle brought now and again a deep red rose, and set it in an exquisite glass vase on Julie’s dressing table. Julie asked no questions; her eyes glistened. She furtively put the rose to her lips; then she’d sit for hours under the hands of the French woman, massage, electric treatment, hot—cold, until her body exhaled an indefinable intoxicating perfume....