I was awfully sorry, but I had promised to help Miss St. Denis fix a waist she was making. So I told this man I could not disappoint my friend. He said: “As you please then,” and was going, when I asked him for his address. He stopped and thought a moment, and then he wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to me. He told me to come to work at ten the following morning, and, bowing, went. The address was in Brookline, and as it was some distance out I planned to start early to be sure to be there on time.
After the man had gone, all my lassitude vanished. I felt like dancing and screaming, I was so relieved and happy. Here I was engaged for six hours’ work a day for all of the summer. I rushed over to tell the good news to Rose St. Denis. She said:
“I think it is too good to be true. It looks too easy. I think he will want the model to pose nude, ha? You will not do so yet?” As I shook my head, she said with a nod: “You will make very poor living if you don’t do so, mon enfant. The artists have not enough to keep one model in work in the costume, and then there are so many doing the same thing. Every girl—all ze actress and ze chorus girl—even ze frien’ of ze artists, she will pose in ze costume. Ze model cannot get enough work to keep her, unless she is friend of some one or, maybe, she is complaisante to ze artist—yes. Only when she pose nude in ze schools—see—she get ze work, so long as she have ze belle figure. It is so. Now, which a model prefer? Pose in nude, starve—or perhaps be maitresse to somebody—which is ze same thing,” she added with a shrug as “aller au diable!” (to go to the devil!)
“Which would you prefer?” I asked her.
“Mon dieu! some funny question you ask,” said the French girl. “It is because I love my Alfred (Alfred was her fiancé) that I pose nude for ze other mens; for because I pose comme ça I can keep myself good and pure for only him. It would be more easy if I were not good. Do you not see, enfant? I pose and stand on my poor feet for three, four, and sometimes nine heures a day—nine heures when I do night work, and for zat I get me fifty cent one heure. The bad girl she get very liddle time more moneys than I; but me? I keep me my respect. Yes—it is so. Soon my Alfred, he will come from France and we will marry. Then, enfant, ah! we will be happy like cheeldren.”
Somehow when she was speaking, this model who posed in the nude, she looked like the Virgin Mary, and I put my arms around her and kissed her. She said:
“Pauvre enfant! Me? I know eet is hard for you! I have ze pity for you; but dat will not put ze food in ze stomach! Non! Soon you will see!”
Happily I awoke next morning. I was going to start at good, steady work. Now, I thought, I would pay Lu Frazer back all I owed her, and I’d send mama some money every week, and Reggie’s letters should go unanswered. He had written me saying that he was coming soon to Boston to bring me home, unless I returned myself. And, I thought, I would buy myself a new hat, and trim it with violets.
I went into the basement dining-room to get my breakfast, and the landlady put a bill at my plate. It was for three dollars for meals I had had. I told her I would pay her sure in a few days.
I had exactly five cents in my pocketbook when I started for Brookline, but I intended to ask the artist to pay me a little in advance. They often did that, and as I was to have steady work, I was sure he would not object. I could not help thinking of a remark of my father’s, that something always “turned up” and I felt that my something had come in the nick of time.