“No, I don’t think it’s that. He did say at first that disobedience meant dismissal. But he—withdrew that later.”
Odette looked disturbed.
“Listen, petite—I am no Héloïse, with her insinuations and her bad thoughts, but you do realize, don’t you, that a man usually makes such concessions only when he expects concessions in return?”
“There is nothing of that, Odette. You needn’t worry.”
“That is what children think when they poke their fingers through the bars at the lions,” Odette retorted. “Well”—she shrugged and sighed impatiently—“sometimes they pull the finger back in time.”
Anthea laughed at this graphic way of putting things. But, although she was so calm and confident to Odette, she did feel faintly self-conscious about her first meeting with Florian again after the very personal events in which they had taken part.
She need not have worried, however. He neither avoided her nor singled her out. He merely sent for her, early in the afternoon, to act as model while he made suggestions and experimental designs for the South American girl with the wealthy mother. And, apart from the fact that he did not stick pins in her, Anthea might have been a canvas and sawdust dummy for all he appeared to notice her.
For some reason it faintly piqued her—at least while the recollection of Friday evening lingered with her. But presently she became absorbed in the impersonal identity of Gabrielle, and the fact that she had shed a few tears on Monsieur Florian’s shoulder, and been kissed by him, took on an aura of improbability which made it almost non-existent.
Even when Madame Moisant finally escorted the distinguished clients downstairs and Anthea was left alone with Florian, he merely gave her one or two curt instructions, as he might have done to any of the other girls, and then dismissed her with an absent nod, before picking up a pencil and beginning to sketch something which had evidently just come into his mind.
The rest of the week was almost boringly uneventful. Roger was out of Paris on business, which greatly reduced the liveliness of Anthea’s leisure hours, while life at Florian’s proceeded with such unusual smoothness that Madame Moisant was heard to remark that this must be the lull before some sort of storm.
Anthea was inclined to agree, and she supposed—with the humorous resignation which was becoming her habitual attitude to such matters—that there would be some unpredictable eruption in connection with the immense cocktail party which was to be given in a day or two for the leading lights of the Paris haute couture.
This was to be one of those business affairs which disguise themselves so successfully as social events, and half a dozen of the Florian mannequins, including Anthea, were attending, in order to display new designs.
Anthea was looking forward to it as a new experience. Consequently, when, early in the following week, she received a summons to Monsieur Florian’s office, her first reaction was anxiety lest something should have jeopardized her attending. A summons to his workroom meant nothing out of the ordinary—merely that one was required for some designing or fitting—but a summons to his office was another matter.
As she reached the door she heard Florian speaking and, when she entered, she found him sitting behind his desk—courteous, unusually relaxed, and playing the host with a faint air of amusement.
“Come in, Gabrielle,” he said, as she hesitated on the threshold. “We have unexpected visitors for you.” And then, as she came farther into the room, she saw, seated on the other side of the desk, her father and Millicent.
It was a moment of unexpected emotion, in which she discovered that, in spite of all his foibles and weaknesses, her father was the nearest person to her in all the world. He suddenly represented home in a way that brought a lump into her throat and sent her rushing across the room to embrace him. And she even submitted with a very good grace when Millicent bumped a softly powdered cheek against hers in simulated affection.
“Oh, Monsieur Florian—did you arrange this?” She was radiant.
But he smiled and shook his head.
“No, mon enfant, I can take no credit for it. Your father wished to make his visit a surprise, and since he asked first to see me, I thought it would be best for you to meet in my office.”
It passed through Anthea’s mind that it was impossible to imagine the fathers of Héloïse or Odette or any of the others assuming that they might call on Monsieur Florian as and when they pleased. But she saw that her employer was amused and not a little intrigued by the situation, so she supposed it was all right.
“Monsieur Florian has just asked if we should like to see the afternoon show,” Millicent explained. “It will be very amusing to see you in such a setting.”
“Mademoiselle Gabrielle tends to excite admiration rather than amusement,” Florian observed politely.
“I’m sure she does,” Millicent agreed, opening her fine eyes very wide and turning her most beautiful and compelling smile in Florian’s direction. He withstood it admirably.
“But why did you call yourself Gabrielle, child?” She turned once more to Anthea, with rather less of the beautiful and compelling smile. “Why not your own name?”
“Monsieur Florian chose Gabrielle.”
“One always changes the name, madame,” Florian explained. “But whether from superstition or etiquette it would be hard to say.”
“How quaint! But what made you think of Gabrielle?”
“I think—her likeness to an angel,” Florian replied gravely.
“Oh!” Millicent looked as though she thought this excessive. “Her hair, you mean?”
“Her hair—among other things,” Florian agreed.
“Well, I never thought of my little girl as an angel,” Colin Marlowe said, becoming, however, the father of an angel with great charm and dignity. “But she is a good child,” he added, taking full responsibility.
“Yes. She is a good child,” Florian agreed with a faint smile. And Anthea wondered why it was that the phrase took on a different meaning when said in that almost gently pitched voice. She was aware that Millicent glanced quickly from Florian to herself.
“Well, Gabrielle”—Florian got up—“you have ten minutes before you need get ready. Stay and talk to your father now, and then take him and Madame Marlowe down to the salon in good time.”
Having said which, he bowed to Anthea’s father and Millicent, and went out, leaving them in sole occupation of the room to which one only ventured on a very special summons.
“What a charming man!” exclaimed Millicent. “You lucky girl, Anthea—to work here.”
“Yes—I think so too.”
“Really, he could not have received us more—more cordially. I’m sure I don’t know why he should,” declared Millicent, while patently attributing the circumstances to her own charm.
There was a certain amount of family competition at this point, however.
“It was the natural courtesy of one artist to another,” Anthea’s father explained simply. “For, in a sense, one may call him an artist, I suppose.”
“He is a very great artist,” Anthea retorted indignantly.
Her father laughed indulgently, which she found annoyed her so much that she hastily changed the subject by asking about their length of stay and their plans while in Paris.
It seemed they were there for a week.
“And our plans are just what we like to make them,” her father said. “But they include seeing a great deal of you.” And he ruffled his daughter’s fair hair and looked effectively melancholy. “I have missed you, child.”
“I’ve missed you too, Father,” Anthea assured him earnestly.
“Ah, well, it’s different when one is young,” her father countered, appropriating the monopoly of nostalgic regrets. “I expect you’ve been having too gay a time to think much of your old father.
Anthea thought of the desperate hours she had known in Paris. But they were the last thing her father would wish to hear about. So she kept silent about them.
“You must introduce us to some of your interesting friends,” Millicent put in. “We can entertain for you while we’re here. You won’t have been able to do much, living on your own in a poky room. Perhaps you would like to bring Monsieur Florian to dinner at the hotel one evening.”
“Really, one doesn’t ‘bring’ Monsieur Florian anywhere,” Anthea assured her. “But I’d love to bring Roger Senloe,” she added, thinking how pleasant it would be to return some of the kindness Roger had lavished on her.
“Senloe? I don’t seem to know the name.” Millicent looked reflective. “Is he in the dress world?”
“Oh, no! The Diplomatic Service.”
“Oh,” said Millicent, who apparently put dresses before diplomacy. And then they went downstairs and Anthea found them good places of observation in the salon.
It was not entirely easy playing her part as mannequin before anyone so intimately connected with her as Millicent and her father.
But, by now, the routine was almost second nature to Anthea, and so she acquitted herself quite well.
Afterwards, Madame Moisant herself actually came and made herself very gracious to Gabrielle’s parents, as she called them—to Millicent’s obvious and intense annoyance. And she explained that Monsieur Florian was seeing to it that they had invitations to the cocktail party which was to take place on the morrow.
“All the important designers will be exhibiting. And a few of no importance whatever,” she said a little repressively. “Your daughter will be there, monsieur, and I am sure she would like to have you and madame attend.”
Compliments were exchanged, thanks expressed, and then, rather to Anthea’s relief, her father and Millicent took their departure. Since they both obviously regarded her work in something of the light of amateur theatricals, she was happy to see them go before they had made this attitude clear to Madame Moisant.
Roger telephoned that evening to say he was back in town, and Anthea gave him the invitation to come and meet her father and Millicent that very evening. He accepted enthusiastically, agreeing to pick her up in about an hour’s time, and Anthea was suddenly and delightfully aware of the feeling of once more being a girl with a background.
She had not actually missed it during the last few months, but, later, sitting at a well-appointed table in a first-class hotel dining-room, with her father acting as host, she could not help thinking that this was all extraordinarily and refreshingly like the old days.
Millicent—always at her best when there was a new and attractive man present—gave a very entertaining account of their visit to the salon, and said again how lucky Anthea was.
“Well, there’s Florian’s point of view too,” Roger said with a smile. “I think he considers he was lucky to get Anthea. She more or less saved his opening show for him, you know.”
“Is that why he is so indulgent to her?” Millicent wanted to know.
“Indulgent? I don’t think Florian is exactly indulgent to anyone who works for him,” Roger said.
“Oh, yes, he is. Calls her ‘mon enfant’ and says she is like an angel, and describes her as ‘a good child’. If that’s not being indulgent, I don’t know what is.”
“It was I who described her as a good child,” Anthea’s father said rather crossly.
“But not in the same tone,” Millicent retorted shrewdly.
“Did he say all that?” Roger looked unusually glum suddenly.
“But it doesn’t mean a thing!” Anthea protested.
“Does he call Héloïse ‘mon enfant’?” Roger wanted to know.
“Well—no.”
“Or say she’s like an angel?”
“No, of course not.” Anthea laughed vexedly. “For the very good reason that she isn’t. I don’t say I am. But he was really only referring to the colour of my hair.”
“No. He said ‘her hair—among other things’,” Millicent recalled with a malicious little laugh. “Good gracious, child, don’t apologize! There’s not a woman between here and Tonga who wouldn’t be glad to have Florian in her pocket. Think of having devotion expressed in terms of Florian models!”
“Oh, Millicent, don’t say such silly things!” Anthea found that she was particularly put out to have this conversation take place in front of Roger. “To Florian I am just a satisfactory mannequin, and rather quaint and amusing because I’m more naïve than most of his girls.”
“Not naïve, my dear—please,” her father protested. “God forbid that any daughter of mine should be lacking in a reasonable degree of worldliness.”
This fortunately led to a useful digression about his views on what constituted a womanly woman who yet displayed that reasonable degree of worldliness which he considered so essential. And, to Anthea’s profound relief, the subject of Florian was dropped.
But, on the way home, Roger brought it up again.
“Look here, Anthea,” he said, as they drove across the Pont Neuf in the moonlight, “I didn’t realize that Florian was quite so—so familiar with you.”
“He is not in the least familiar with me,” Anthea stated firmly. “You mustn’t pay attention to Millicent’s nonsense. She doesn’t understand his particular, almost whimsical way of addressing m—people.”
“Does he address Héloïse whimsically?” Roger enquired, rather mulishly, she could not help thinking.
“I don’t know why you have to keep harping on Héloïse!”
“All right, then. Does he address Odette whimsically?” asked Roger, making the word seem rather odiously mannered by repetition.
“No.”
“Just you?”
“Roger, there is nothing in it, I tell you.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t take more notice of all these things before,” was all Roger said.
“I don’t know why you should want to take notice of them now,” retorted Anthea, keeping her temper with difficulty. “You ought to have more sense than to pay attention to Millicent, whose hobby is mischief-making.”
“I’m not paying any special attention to her and her views,” Roger maintained stubbornly. “Either Florian says and does these things or he doesn’t. And then there was that rotten business over Peroni and the cloak. The more I think about it, the less I like it. Anthea—don’t jump down my throat for suggesting it—but I wish you’d leave Florian’s at the end of the season. You could easily get a job in one of the other dress houses now.”
“Leave—Florian’s? You must be mad,” said Anthea. “Why, I adore the place. And, anyway, even if I didn’t, how do you suppose I could think of leaving him now? Why, he made me. I’m almost as much a creation of his as one of his own models——”
“Oh, Anthea, really!”
“It’s true. I’d be wandering, around Paris without a bean by now, but for Florian. Or, worse still, be living on sufferance in Millicent’s home.”
“Come, it wasn’t all Florian,” Roger protested. “Madame Moisant made the actual discovery, and your own talent had something to do with it.”
“But it was his genius—and, yes, his handling of me—that transformed me. What sort of gratitude would it be, if I went to one of his rivals now?”
“It need not be one of his immediate rivals,” Roger said obstinately. “I was thinking of Ormaine’s. I could get you an introduction there. You’d almost certainly get a job in their London house.”
“I don’t want a job in anyone’s London house!” exclaimed Anthea, quite enraged at what she considered to be unwarrantable interference in her affairs. “Why should I?”
“For one thing, I’m probably going to be moved to London in a few months’ time.”
“I don’t care where you’re going to be moved,” retorted Anthea, carried away by her anger. “You can go where you like and do what you like. But I’m staying on at Florian’s. Good night.”
The opportunity to use this effective exit-line was due to the fact that Roger had just stopped the car outside her home. He tried to protest, as she wrenche
d open the door of the car and got out. But, refusing to listen to him, she ran into the house without a backward glance.
By the time she reached her room, she had cooled somewhat, and she was already wishing she had not been so harsh. Certainly she wished she had not said to Roger that she didn’t mind where he went or what he did. She minded very much, of course. The thought of Paris without him was not to be contemplated.
But then, neither was the thought of Florian’s without herself.
If only she had not pressed the argument to the point of quarrelling. At least—he had pressed the argument. But she ought to have been able to argue calmly and without temper. It was inconceivable that she had parted from Roger—Roger—in anger. Terribly—urgently—she wanted to make it up with him. But there was nothing she could do now until the morning.
She slept rather brokenly—and then overslept, which made her too late to telephone to Roger before leaving for the salon. In fact, not until half-way through the morning did she have a chance to telephone to his office and then she received the chilling, exasperating reply that “Mr. Senloe was in conference”.
After that she had to wait until the afternoon. But this time the reply was even more chilling. “Mr. Senloe cannot be reached just now,” the impersonal voice informed her, and for a terrible moment she wondered if Roger had given instructions to reject any call from her. The sheer impossibility of this, however, consoled her on reflection. One simply could not imagine Roger taking offence to that extent.
There was nothing more she could do just then, and it was, in any case, time to dress for the cocktail party. She was to wear a sherry-brown taffeta suit, with a tiny matching hat. The subtle yet brilliant shade of brown brought out the faintly golden tint of her skin, while the twist of taffeta and tulle which was the hat looked like nothing so much as a big tawny brown butterfly on her shining head.
When they were all ready, Florian came in to inspect them before himself departing for the party. He had a brief word for each of them and was, as Anthea had noticed whenever he was likely to meet his fashion rivals, in his pleasantest and most urbane mood.
Under the Stars of Paris Page 16