“Oh!” she breathed. “Oo, la la!”
“Of course,” once again Lorena LeMar’s tone was matter-of-fact, “while you are Lorena LeMar you will wear these. Nothing will go so far toward perfecting your disguise.”
This time Jeanne had no word to offer. She was trying in vain to picture herself, Petite Jeanne—the little French girl who for many months had traveled with gypsies, dancing with a bear—living in this apartment and wearing these clothes.
It was true that for the better part of a year she had been considered rich. But, in France, to be rich is to be thrifty. Her people were all that. She had fallen into their way of thinking. Few garments had been added to her wardrobe.
“And now this!” she thought. “Ah, well, I am to be a queen, a queen of the movies for two weeks.”
She went skipping away across the floor in one of her wild gypsy dances.
Lorena LeMar caught her in her arms as she came dancing back. “Then you will do it? You dearest of all creatures!”
“How could I resist it?”
And yet, left alone in the midst of all this splendor while her double went on a shopping tour to secure sports clothes for her yachting trip, the little French girl was all but overcome with misgivings. It is one thing to appear on a movie lot each day and say certain words, go through certain gestures that have been learned and rehearsed; but quite another to live as your double has lived, among acquaintances, associates, friends off stage, from morning till night.
“I shall become a bookworm,” she assured herself. “When I am not rehearsing or playing a part I shall be right here curled up reading a book.”