“I have been thinking over those jupons à traine that I ordered yesterday,” said Berthe to the pugnacious-looking little lingère, “and I have an idea that the entre-deux anglais will be a failure. We ought to have decided on Valenciennes.”
“Ah! I thought Madame la Comtesse would come round to it!” observed Mademoiselle Florine with a smile of supreme satisfaction. “I told Madame la Comtesse it was a mistake.”
“Yes, I felt you didn’t approve; but really twelve hundred francs for six petticoats did seem a great deal,” observed Berthe deprecatingly. “Now, suppose we put alternately one row of deep entre-deux and a tuyauté de batiste edged with a narrow Valenciennes instead of all Valenciennes?”
“Voyons—réfléchissons!” said Mademoiselle Florine, putting her finger to her lips, and knitting her brow.
“It occurred to me in my bed last night,” continued Berthe, “and I fell asleep and actually dreamed of it, and you can’t think how pretty it looked, so light and at the same time très garni.”
“So much the better! Talk to me of a customer like that!” exclaimed Mademoiselle Florine, clasping her hands and turning to me with a look of admiration which was almost affecting from its earnestness. “There is some compensation in working for madame, at least. If those ladies knew what I have to endure from three-quarters of the world!” And she threw up her hands and shook her head in the direction of the premier salon. “But let me get out the models, and see how this dream of Madame la Comtesse’s looks in reality.” Boxes of lace and embroidery were ordered out by the excited lingère, and under her deft and nimble fingers the dream was illustrated in the course of a few minutes. Berthe was undecided. She sat down and surveyed the combination in silent perplexity.
“Really this question of jupons makes life too complicated!” she said presently; “and now I begin to ask myself if these will go with any of my new dresses? The crinoline éventail is going out, Monsieur Grandhomme told me, and they will never go with the queue de moineau that he is bringing in!”
Here was a predicament!
“Attendez,” said Florine, dropping a dozen rouleaux of lace on the floor as if such costly rags, the mere mortar and clay of her airy architecture, were not worth a thought. “Let us leave the question of jupons unsettled for a while; I will go myself this evening and discuss the toilettes of Madame la Comtesse with her femme de chambre; we will see the style and fall of the new skirts, and adapt the jupons to them.”
“How good you are!” exclaimed Berthe, looking and feeling grateful for this unlooked-for solution of her difficulty.