“Oh, please don’t call me mademoiselle.”
“It’s the Master’s orders.”
The next morning the girl remained in bed until the old woman sidled in with a tray of café au lait, croissants and fine butter.
“Now stay in bed till I come back.”
The girl heard her go out, locking the door. She returned an hour later carrying a large parcel containing a kimono of mauve silk, fine lace underwear, silk stockings, and velvet shoes.
“There! Put these on. It’s the Master’s orders. And I’ll go and prepare your bath.”
It must be said that Madame Mangepain entered on her undertaking with zeal if not with enthusiasm. She taught the girl the elegancies of the toilette, the care of her skin, how to point and polish her nails and to bring to perfection her teeth and her hair. She had quite a battery of bottles and brushes, of oils and paints and perfumes. Margot spent every morning in the white-tiled bathroom, meticulously following the régime that the old woman demanded of her.
For luncheon, each day she was given dainty dishes such as she had never dreamed of; then, wrapt in the mauve kimono and stretched out on the great divan in the studio amid a pile of cushions, she would read one of the luridly covered novels the old woman bought for her. Among them were Chéri-Bebé, Dracula and Les deux Gosses. These books absorbed her, made her forget her strange surroundings, which otherwise filled her with a vague fear. Sometimes she even thought of escape, when she sat on fine afternoons in the wild unweeded garden amid the headless statues. By climbing upon one of them she could have gained the top of the wall and freedom. But after that ... what? The streets! She had a horror of the outer world which the old woman never lost an opportunity of developing. According to Madame Mangepain Paris was a merciless ogre, demanding its daily tribute of a thousand girls such as she, crushing and devouring them.
One day as she peered through a window into the street, she saw a girl about her age in a violet blouse with black, oily hair banged on her forehead, and at her side, a pale stunted youth with a reckless mouth and eyes cold as those of a snake. They seemed to be having words. Suddenly the youth struck the girl, knocking her down; then snatched a cheap trinket from her throat, and with a final vicious kick, went off laughing cynically. This typical scene of apache life made a deep impression on her.
“It’s all like that,” she thought,—“the life out there. It’s what will happen to me.”