This time, however, it was undoubtedly Michael, and as she slid into the seat beside him, she was reminded painfully of countless other times when he had met her, when——
But it was better not to let her mind travel along those forbidden paths. Instead, she made her voice, as impersonally friendly as possible and asked,
“Where are we going, Michael? Are you just driving me home or——”
“I hoped you would have dinner with me.”
But no! She was not spending half the evening with him, sharpening again the memories she was striving to make dim, learning once more every turn of phrase and gesture which had been so agonizingly dear.
“I’m afraid I can’t, Michael.” She said that coolly, and she offered him no further explanation. “Perhaps we could go somewhere and have coffee and a—a short talk.”
“Very well. Though I don’t know that a short talk is going to cover it,” he replied a little drily.
“But I don’t understand.” She was pressing her hands together now, to keep them from trembling. “What can there be left for us to say to each other, Michael—or for you to ask me, come to that?”
“There’s a damned lot, and you know it,” he retorted, his voice roughened and deepened with emotion in a way that was entirely foreign to him, she knew. “And the first thing I want to ask you is—what is there between you and that Florian fellow?”
Chapter Four
She was so astonished—both at the violence of Michael’s words and, presumably, the violence of the feeling which had prompted them—that for a moment she could think of no reply. Then she gathered her wits together and answered spiritedly enough.
“How dare you ask me such a question in such a tone? What should there be between Monsieur Florian and me, pray? I only met him a few days ago. I’m nothing but a mannequin with the right colouring and the right measurements, so far as he is concerned.”
“Then what’s all this stuff about your being his inspiration and saving his show?” Michael wanted to know, though his tone was more pacific now and he was obviously impressed by her vehemence. “And how about that appalling photograph of you slipping into some doorway together, with a backward glance?”
“Don’t be so ridiculous! We happened to arrive at work at the same moment. Surely you know there are some papers that would make something questionable out of a Sunday School treat. You’re not a child, to start imagining things and——”
“No child ever imagined the sort of thing that’s been worrying me ever since I saw that confounded paper,” Michael assured her, with an unexpected flash of grim humour. “I’m sorry, Anthea. But how—and still more why—did you ever get yourself mixed up in an outfit of this kind?”
“Don’t call Florian’s an ‘outfit’, in that condescending way,” Anthea said firmly. “It happens to be one of the most famous fashion houses in Paris. In the world,” she added, aware suddenly that she was filled with that “local loyalty” which had amused her in others, less than a week ago. “I’m remarkably lucky to be there, I can tell you. There are girls who would give their eyeteeth for such a chance.”
“And it just fell into your lap?” Michael asked sceptically.
“It just fell into my lap.”
“With no assistance from the great Florian himself?” Michael enquired ironically.
“None at all,” she insisted cheerfully. “Do you want to hear the story—or do you prefer the fable of me living in gilded sin?”
Michael gave her a startled glance.
“You never talked like that in the old days,” he said, and something in his bewilderment touched her suddenly and wrung her heart.
“Oh, Michael—there are no old days now! At least, none that we should let ourselves remember. I’m sorry if I seem brighter and harder to you now. Maybe I am. Life does that to one sometimes—especially certain aspects of it. But I’m much the same underneath. So please, don’t have any wild ideas about me and Florian.”
“Very well. It’s sufficient, of course, if you give me such an assurance,” Michael said, much more gently than he had spoken so far. “I’m sorry in my turn, if I sounded suspicious and censorious.”
“‘Sounded’?” thought Anthea. “You were!” But she kept that to herself and aloud she said,
“It’s such an extraordinary story, I know, that it’s rather difficult to credit. But, if you’d like to hear it, I’ll tell you just what did happen.”
And so once again, but this time over coffee and to Michael, she told the story of the transformation of Anthea Marlowe into Mademoiselle Gabrielle the mannequin.
He found it much less amusing than Roger had, but he listened with even more intense interest, and asked one or two questions that were very much to the point. At the end he said briefly,
“Does your father know?”
“Father? Oh, no, not yet. I haven’t had time to write and tell him. He just thinks I’m in Paris, earning my own living as a companion or translator or something.”
“But you will be telling him?”
“Yes, of course. In my next letter. But I don’t write all that often, you know. He doesn’t expect it.”
Michael frowned.
“What do you think he’ll say?”
A mischievous smile flashed across Anthea’s face.
“Literally, do you mean? He’ll say—‘Trust a daughter of mine to land on her feet. I always knew the girl would do something original.’”
Michael gave a vexed little laugh.
“You don’t think he will object?”
“I don’t see why he should. And, quite frankly, I shouldn’t take any notice if he did. I have independence and a job which I love already. Why should he—why should anyone—object?”
Michael moved uneasily.
“It isn’t the job that every man would choose for his—his womenfolk,” he said at last. “Of course I believe you when you say there is—I mean, that the whole thing is nothing but a business arrangement. But frankly, Anthea, I’d rather you were doing almost anything else.”
“You’d be surprised how few other things offered,” she told him drily. “I was down to my last fifty francs when this happened. Madame Moisant seemed to me like an angel from heaven, and she can’t have seemed that way to many people in her life.”
“Anthea!” He was aghast, quite refusing to take this disclosure in the light manner she made it. “You mean that you were actually short of money? Desperately short, that is? But, my dear girl, why did you let it get as far as that? Why didn’t you go home? Your father may be casual and irresponsible, but at least there would always be a home for you in his house.”
“With Millicent?” Anthea said gently. “No, Michael, I think not. I much prefer any sort of independence in Paris to that.”
He bit his lip. Perhaps he saw for the first time just what his defection had meant, in practical terms.
“I forgot Millicent,” he admitted.
“Well, everything has worked out wonderfully, as it happens,” she insisted smilingly. “You really don’t need to worry about me.”
“I shall worry, just the same,” he said, and frowned as though she were still very much his concern. “I hate the thought of you in that place,with that fellow around.”
“Do you mean Monsieur Florian?” she asked with rather obvious self-control.
“Of course.”
“You don’t really know a thing about him, do you?” she said sweetly.
“Well, come to that, do you?” he retorted.
She did not, of course, and so she remained silent. And, after a moment, Michael said stiffly,
“He hasn’t the best of reputations, you know. That’s why that confounded newspaper photograph was so unfortunate. Some people will think almost anything from that.”
“It seems you were among them, Michael,” she pointed out rather drily. “But”—she smiled suddenly in amused recollection—“Monsieur Florian himself said that no one would take me for his mistress i
n this coat.”
“Is that his style of conversation to you?” exclaimed Michael disgustedly. “Very reassuring, I must say.”
“Oh, dear, he was not in the least serious!” protested Anthea, wishing she had not put Michael’s sense of humour to that test. “If you could only realize how impersonally he regards me, or a photograph of me, come to that. All he was concerned about was the idea that someone might thank he had designed a mass-produced coat.”
Michael was rather gloomily silent, but she thought he was a trifle reassured by this last statement.
“I must go, Michael.” She took her mirror out of her handbag and dusted powder on her nose as though she were a busy girl with lots of engagements to attend to. “It’s very kind of you to have been concerned about me, but you’re worrying yourself unnecessarily. Please believe me.”
He shrugged slightly.
“If you say so, that’s all right.”
He insisted on taking her home. And though she would have preferred him not to know where she was living, it was difficult to insist on a refusal without ungraciousness or a suggestion of pique—both of which she was anxious to avoid.
They said good-bye briefly, when the time came—a little self-consciously, because there was the shadow of too many other good-byes of a very different character between them. And, as she climbed the stairs to her attic room, she thought,
“It was a mistake to go with him. There is no such thing as two people remaining good friends when they have been in love. They must be strangers or else hurt each other all the time.”
For a day or two her encounter with Michael weighed heavily on her spirits. But the demands—and, to tell the truth, the attractions—of her new life left little time for introspective thought. Like everyone else in the place—from Madame Moisant to the most junior sewing-girl, running around humbly with pins and threads—she found she identified herself with the fortunes of the House of Florian. Sometimes it astounded her, and sometimes it almost frightened her, to think that the whole of this immense organization—the livelihood of close on four hundred people—stemmed from the single brain of one man.
No wonder Odette had said, in her own picturesque phraseology, that he was entitled to be “a monster” at times.
Anthea saw little of this side of him, however, in those early days. There would be a sharp outburst of nervous anger about some trifle occasionally but, considering the strain of these fiercely competitive weeks, she supposed one could not really expect less.
To her surprise and gratification, she had not been long at the salon before she experienced her first outside success. She was asked to act as photographic model for a feature in one of the more exclusive magazines dealing with furs. And, with Florian’s not altogether willing permission, she posed in mink and ermine and a fabulous silver fox evening cape which made her feel like a duchess.
“I can’t wait for the article to appear,” she told Roger, over another of those unsentimental but extraordinarily enjoyable little dinners. “I never expected to see myself in glossy print. And wearing about two thousand pounds’ worth of furs too!”
Roger looked amused.
“Did Florian mind your doing it?” he wanted to know.
“He wasn’t entirely pleased, I think.”
“No? I do see his quandary, of course,” Roger said with enjoyment. “He’s torn between the desire to keep you exclusive and the itch to build you up as quickly as possible into a recognizable public figure, which will enhance your value.”
“Do you seriously see that happening?” Anthea asked soberly.
“Of course. And sooner than you think, probably. I daresay that will be the point when Florian will try to get your exclusive services. In fact, it certainly will. He’ll try to tell you that you owe everything to him, and play on your generosity that way.”
“But I do owe everything to him.”
“Nonsense! Only the initial chance,” Roger declared with a laugh. “Give him the credit for that, if you like. But the charm and the talent and the beauty are your own. Don’t you be afraid to set a high value on yourself if he does make a bid for your exclusive services. Florian’s no amateur at driving a bargain! If he makes such an offer it will mean you’ve reached the stage of finding that people nudge each other when you come into a restaurant or a theatre and whisper, ‘There goes Gabrielle.’”
Anthea laughed unbelievingly and shook her head.
“Which reminds me,” Roger went on, “that you really ought to be seen at one or two big functions. It makes people notice and talk.”
“Who’s building me up now?” Anthea asked amusedly. “You or Florian?”
“I’m merely supplementing in a friendly way what I don’t doubt Florian will do in the way of business,” Roger declared with a grin. “Will you let me take you to the Charity Ball at the Crillon next Wednesday? I’ve forgotten what it’s in aid of, but something very worthy, I’m sure.”
“No, of course not. These big charity affairs cost a mint of money.”
“Are you telling me I can’t afford the luxury of entertaining the fabulous Mademoiselle Gabrielle?” he enquired, still with that boyish grin.
“Don’t be an idiot, Roger! It’s just that you’ve done so much for me already. I don’t want to seem——”
“Two perfectly ordinary dinners and the offer of a small loan, which you refused,” he reminded her scornfully. “Look, Anthea, I very much want to go to this affair. There Will be several people there I ought to meet. I can’t go on my own, and—to put it on the lowest plane—you’re far the most attractive and presentable girl I know for a partner on such an occasion.”
She bit her lip and laughed.
“You’re making all this up, of course,” she told him. Then she mentally reviewed her wardrobe, which showed that she was weakening.
“I haven’t really anything suitable to wear for such an occasion,” she murmured, more critically clothes-conscious now than ever in her life before. “Unless——”
“Of course you have,” he declared confidently, adding, manlike, “You look lovely in anything.”
“That’s no girl’s favourite compliment,” Anthea assured him absently, while she wondered if she could freshen up her ivory chiffon and make it do for the occasion.
“Please say ‘yes’, Anthea. It would be a real morale-booster, so far as I’m concerned.”
He said that lightly enough, but suddenly she remembered that other girl who had crushed him with a much more disastrous refusal, and it seemed proportionately important that she should say “yes” at this moment.
So she said it, and told him smilingly how much she really wanted to go to the ball.
“Good!” He was openly delighted. “I’ll get the tickets tomorrow.”
It was impossible not to feel happy and exhilarated over the prospect. It was so long—too long—since she had gone out light-heartedly to some really festive affair, and, now that she was mastering the routine at Florian’s, she felt it was time to start building some outside life of her own.
At the salon she was beginning to feel almost completely at home. For one thing, the work was no longer full of dramatic surprises. And for another she was on excellent terms with all her colleagues.
Even Héloïse seemed to have got over her initial jealousy, while Odette treated her with the indulgence of the good-natured expert and often gave her careless but very helpful advice.
Childish in most of her reactions, Héloïse showed considerable curiosity about Roger, whom she had seen both times he had come to collect Anthea.
“He is your regular beau?” she enquired of Anthea.
“No. I don’t think I’d describe him as that,” Anthea said, not at all sure what Héloïse included in the term. “We are just acquaintances. Friends, perhaps.”
Héloïse stared at her with rather blank blue eyes and evidently did not follow this very well.
“He is not the marrying kind?” she suggested.
“
Good heavens! I’ve no idea. We aren’t interested in each other in that way,” Anthea assured her. “Nor in the way you’re thinking either,” she added with some exasperation, as she saw an over-understanding look come into those blue eyes.
“So?” said Héloïse, once more at a loss.
“We’ve really only gone out to dinner once or twice with each other. We have mutual friends in London,” Anthea said, stretching the truth a little to make the position clear.
“Perhaps you go dancing together?” suggested Héloïse, who evidently found the picture so far very uninspiring.
“I’m going to the Charity Ball with him on Wednesday,” Anthea conceded;
“Ah!” Héloïse was on more familiar ground. “This will be a very fine affair. Odette also is going.”
“Is she?” Anthea was interested. Then she said reflectively, “I wonder what she is wearing?” and wished that her own dress had not seen quite so much service before.
“Florian is dressing her.”
“Is he?”
“But of course. He would not wish his principal mannequin”—even Héloïse conceded Odette this on occasion—“to look anything but a credit to him. Sometimes, even, he lets one of us borrow a dress for a special occasion.”
“Does he?” Anthea said. But it did not occur to her to apply this to herself. She was too much of a newcomer, she thought, for such a privilege.
So she bought a not too wildly expensive shoulder spray for her white chiffon and hoped for the best.
On the Wednesday morning, however, when she gave her dress a final inspection before departing to work, she felt anything but satisfied with it. Perhaps the weeks at Florian’s had made her over-critical. Perhaps the occasions when the dress had been a radiant success were all too tarnished and dim in her present recollection. Whatever the reason, she looked at her dress with great disfavour and told herself that she would not do Roger much credit.
Now she was sorry that she had let him talk her into going. From gossip heard in the salon, she realized that it was to be a very big affair indeed—and he had been so kind to her in every way—and seemed quite proud at the thought of taking her. It was almost like letting him down.
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