"The effect shall be long, slim, excellent. Soft folds from one's waist—so. From one's shoulder—so. A line of velvet here and here and down. Bien! Mademoiselle will look younger than everyone! If mademoiselle would wave ze hair back a ver' little—so?" the French woman delicately advanced.
"Ma'moiselle," returned Calliope recklessly, "will do anything you want her to, short of a pink rose over one ear. My land, I never hed a dress before that I didn't hev to skimp the pattern and make it up less according to my taste than according to my cloth."
That day I sent to the city for a box at the opera. I chose "Faust," and smiled as I planned to sing the Jewel Song for Calliope before we went, and to laugh at her in her surprising rôle of Butterfly. "Ah, je ris de me voir si belle." A lower proscenium box, a modest suite at a comfortable hotel, a little supper, a cab—I planned it all for the pleasure of watching her; and all this would, I knew, be given its significance by the wearing of the anomalous, rosy gown. And I loved Calliope for her weakness as we love the whip-poor-will for his little catching of the breath.
On the day that our tickets came Calliope appeared before me in some anxiety.
"Calliope," I said, without observing this, "our opera box is, so to speak, here."
But instead of the light in her face that I had expected:
"What night?" she abruptly demanded.
"For 'Faust,' on Wednesday," I told her.
And instead of her delight of which I had made sure: