I bathed Rose St. Denis’ feet, and made her comfortable, and she thanked me very sweetly and seemed to be grateful. I sat beside her bed for a while, smoothing her forehead. She was not really ill, just tired out. Presently I said:
“Now the time has come for me to pose nude, too, or as you say, starve or go to the devil.”
She opened her eyes with a start, and she said:
“Dieu! But you say things so suddenly, enfant. You are funniest girl. You say sometime ze ting I would not dare to speak, for if I did I would have to confess to my priest; and den you are so afraid to do some tings dat is nuttings wrong, and you mek one beeg fuss for dat.”
She sat up in the bed, with her knees drawn up, and regarded me with the benignant tolerant glance of a wise young mother. She could understand my viewpoint in regard to posing nude, but she believed I was simply wrong and my stubbornness in the matter had always puzzled her. She did not waste any time on pitying me now. On the contrary she urged me to do the work.
“Now you have come,” she said, “at a very good time, for me. I am not able to go to dat night class, and I have made engagement for all of dis week. You will take my place, voilà! First you will go to ze master of ze school, and you will tell him you have pose bi-fore, dat you have ze belle figure—yes, you must say dat. If necessaire you will show him.” As I shook my head, she nodded at me and said: “Yes, yes, you will do dat, if necessaire. Mebbe he will not require. You must not tell him dat you have not pose bi-fore in dat altogedder. He will tink you ‘greenhorn,’ as you say, den. Tell him you are one professional model, and dat you are frien’ to Rose St. Denis, and dat you will tek my place. I tink he will be satisfy. You look liddle bit like me—like you are liddle sister to me. Yes, dat is so.”
She patted my hand, smiling comfortingly at me. Then she went on with her instructions. It was only Tuesday, and I would have five evenings’ work and earn seven dollars and fifty cents. I would probably also be engaged for the following
“Tell him you are one professional model, and dat you are friend to Rose St. Denis and that you will take my place.”
week, and for the day classes of the summer school. A model as much in demand as was Rose St. Denis sometimes got steady work of nine hours a day. Three in the morning, three in the afternoon, and three at night. She assured me that I would be soon as much in demand as she was, perhaps more so, since I was younger than she.