Madame, Or…

It was a perfect street for it, Walter thought as he walked along checking the numbers on the houses, a neighborhood that not too long ago had been highly select and that now was only slightly down at the heels. A few of the houses were still private, but most of them had been divided into small apartments, and at two of the street corners were two new apartment buildings. He paused at one of the brownstones, looking up, frowning and unexpectedly nervous, at the lace-curtained parlor windows. He thought he caught a glimpse of two girls’ faces peeping behind the curtains: Was one of them Nancy? From somewhere in the building came the unexpected sound of violin exercises meticulously executed. He drew back his shoulders bravely and bounded up the steps, pausing again before ringing the bell to the front door. To the right was a polished brass plaque: MADAME SEPTMONCEL’S RESIDENCE FOR YOUNG LADIES. Walter read it carefully and smiled sardonically, and his smile gave him courage to push the bell.

The heavy front door was opened almost immediately by a young girl with a mop of wavy black hair, unnaturally long eyelashes (though they were, indeed, all her own), and a figure blossoming tightly against a yellow cashmere sweater that was perhaps half a size too small. Her mouth was heavily lipsticked, her face otherwise free of cosmetics. She smiled radiantly at Walter.

“Won’t you come in, please?” she said. “Who is it you wish to see and whom shall I say is calling?” Her speech was very correct, almost a little too precise, as though she had been taking speech lessons: her voice was too husky for her accent. From upstairs the sound of the violin came more clearly now, a difficult passage of a cadenza exquisitely played.

“I would like to see Nancy Burton, please,” Walter said. “I am Walter Burton.”

“Oh, of course!” the girl said. “I knew I’d seen you somewhere before. Do come in and sit down and I’ll call Nancy.” She led the way into the parlor, her little bottom bouncing jauntily in the tight brown tweed skirt. Walter went over to a love seat upholstered in lemon-yellow satin, but he did not sit. “But you haven’t ever seen me before,” he said. “At least I’ve never seen you, and if I ever had I’m sure I could never have forgotten it.”

The girl laughed. “Well, aren’t you sweet! Nancy has a picture of you in her room. So you’re the famous Walter. Odd you both having the same last name, isn’t it?”

“Not especially, since—” Walter started, and then stopped, remembering Nancy’s proclivities.

“Since what?” the girl asked.

But Walter got out of it by asking, “Who’s the violinist?”

“Oh, that’s Natalia. Good, isn’t she?”

“I don’t know too much about it,” Walter said cautiously, “but she sounds all right.” He could not take his eyes off the girl’s obvious charms and she spoke too quickly to cover his embarrassment. “I’ve never in my life seen such long eyelashes. Do you put them on with spirit gum every morning?”

The girl laughed again. She had a slow laugh that started deep down her throat and rose to a gay chuckle. “You’re really as nice as Nancy said you were,” she said. She bent down to fondle a sleek grey cat that came slinking through the door. The cat moved lasciviously under her hand, turned, and moved back again.

“Are you a friend of Nancy’s?” Walter asked.

“I have the room next door. Oh, I’m Deirdre O’Hara, by the way. I know it’s a silly name, but it’s all mine. I’ll go call Nancy. Is she expecting you?”

“No,” Walter said. “I hope she’s here.”

“Oh, sure.” Deirdre moved away from the cat, blowing hair off the palms of her hands. The cat bounded onto an amber velvet cushion on a lemon satin chair and sat there, turning its head from side to side as if ready to participate in the conversation. “Look, are you planning to take Nancy out to dinner or anything?”

“Well—yes.”

“Then you’d better see the madame first.”

“The madame?”

“Madame Septmoncel. I mean, you’ll have to get her permission before Nancy can leave in the evening.”

Walter frowned. Deirdre looked at him and laughed again. “What’s the matter? Scared? The madame won’t bite. Look, I’ll go tell her you are here, and see if she can see you right away. She rests in the afternoon but—what time is it?”

“Five thirty.”

“Oh, then she’ll be up. And then while you’re with the madame, I can tell Nancy to go put on her best bib and tucker.” She smiled disarmingly again. “I’m really not terribly good at this. The madame asked me if I’d mind answering the door this afternoon because Aggie’s sick.”

“Aggie?”

“She’s the maid. Now hold on a minute, Walter, and I’ll be right back.” She hurried off, with that provocative wiggling gait, Walter staring after her, the cat leaping off the chair and following her. The combination of bravery and timidity with which Walter had walked down the street and climbed the brownstone steps had both gone, leaving him with a simple sense of excitement. It might be a wild goose chase; he might be going to make a fool of himself; but you never could tell with Nancy and he owed it to her to come and find out what it was all about. He looked very carefully around the room. Coldly and exquisitely furnished. Lemon-yellow satin. Rosewood. Parquet floor. Aubusson rug. An Impressionist painting over the mantelpiece, an excellent one, though he could not place it, a young, voluptuous-looking woman in a green velvet dress. Maybe Renoir, though he did not think so. A green jade horse on the escritoire. Late afternoon sun coming palely through the curtains.

Deirdre returned. “Madame Septmoncel says that she will be delighted to see you, Walter. You don’t mind if I call you Walter, do you? I feel I know you so well from the picture and all the things Nancy’s said.”

And what the hell has Nancy said?

“Come on,” Deirdre said. “I’ll show you the way. Am I doing this all right? The madame says my manners are deplorable. I suppose they are. She thought it would do me good to take the door today, though there haven’t been too many people. She says swinging the hips isn’t the answer to all questions and I suppose she’s quite right, though anytime I’m stuck it’s stood me in good stead. I’m reading The Red and the Black now. The madame thought it would do me good. Oh. That’s a non sequitur, isn’t it? The madame says I make them all the time. She’ll make me over yet. Don’t look so nervous, Walter, love, I told you she wouldn’t bite.”

He followed her down a long, dark corridor, a sepulchral darkness that lemon-yellow satin and sunlight had not managed to dissipate. Deirdre giggled and turned back to look at him. “Golly, it’s dark, isn’t it? One of the bulbs has gone out.” And he shook himself, thinking—See, it’s only in my imagination, it’s because of Nancy, it isn’t so at all.

Deirdre knocked on a door and opened it with a flourish.

“Walter Burton, please; Madame Septmoncel,” she said, and gave Walter a little shove, so that he had, whether he would or no, to advance a few steps into the room.

It was a study, and Madame Septmoncel was sitting in a blue velvet chair at a Regency desk. There was a fire burning in the fireplace against the autumn chill, and one or two lamps were already lit. A different cat, a tiger-striped one, lay on a sheaf of papers on the desk. Firelight and lamplight flickered against the backs of books, pictures, rose brocade curtains, mahogany, and Madame Septmoncel’s silver hair. Walter took a few more steps towards the desk, and Madame Septmoncel came towards him, holding out her hand.

Walter took it and was astonished at the power of the grip, for she was a tiny, exquisite woman, delicate-boned, fragilely appointed. “Good afternoon, Mr. Burton.” Her voice was low and cultured, the voice Deirdre O’Hara emulated. “Deirdre said you wished to see me?”

“Well I—that is—” Walter stammered.

Madame Septmoncel returned to her blue velvet chair. “Please do be seated,” she said, gesturing to a straight chair opposite hers.

Walter sat and looked across the desk at Madame Septmoncel. Gray eyes, their lucidity only slightly clouded by years, looked with amusement into his; he had never felt so young. “I’m Nancy Burton’s brother,” he said, “and I wondered if it would be all right if I took her out to dinner.”

“Her brother?” Madame Septmoncel raised amused eyebrows.

“Well—yes.”

Madame Septmoncel sighed. “Your sister has already made a place for herself here,” she said. “We’re all very fond of her, the girls and the staff and I. Yes, I can see that you are her brother. You have the honey-colored hair, and there is the same look of innocence between the eyes, and the timid line of jaw is similar. Yes, there is a definite sibling resemblance.”

“Why—” Walter asked, “why shouldn’t I be her brother?”

Madame Septmoncel offered Walter a cigarette, pushed matches and a cloisonné ashtray towards him, and then leaned back in her chair, one hand reaching up to touch the pearls at her neck. “You were not present when your father brought Nancy to me.”

“No,” Walter said.

“He told me that sometimes—sometimes her imagination runs away with her.”

Walter looked unhappy. “Yes. You see, our mother died three years ago and there’s really been no one to—to understand Nancy since. Father’s a terribly busy man—”

“Yes,” Madame Septmoncel said. “And you, I believe, started in the business with him this autumn?”

Walter nodded. Madame Septmoncel laughed. It was, Walter thought, Deirdre’s laugh with a foreign accent; so Deirdre had gotten her laugh as well as her speech from the madame. But not her walk; Deirdre’s walk, he was certain, was her own, and he did not want it changed. But then again, if Nancy was right, perhaps Deirdre’s walk was as assumed as her accent and her laugh. He looked across the desk at Madame Septmoncel. Her face was half in shadow, but he could see the delicate modeling of her bones; the arch of her brows, still dark under the silver hair; the thin, patrician line of her nose; the delicate, compassionate mouth.

“Your father told me Nancy had an older brother but somehow I did not connect to Nancy’s Walter—it was stupid of me.”

“Nancy’s Walter?” he asked.

She smiled. “Don’t judge her harshly. She knows no one here and she hasn’t had time yet to make outside friends. Several of the girls, particularly the ones who were here last year or who already have friends in the city, have had young men come to see them, or to take them out to dinner or to the theatre. So Nancy had her picture of Walter. Walter who just happened to be a Burton, too, who was a musician, a violinist.”

“I do play the violin,” Walter said rather stiffly.

“But not nearly as well as our Natalia, unless I’m very much mistaken.”

“No.” Walter grinned. “I play abominably.”

“And you are Nancy’s brother, aren’t you?”

“Oh. I see,” he said.

“Now, please. Don’t say anything to Nancy if you can help it. It will spoil her evening. Did she expect you to come so soon?”

“I don’t suppose she expected me at all,” Walter said unwillingly. “Dad just happened to have some unimportant business to be done here in the city and I managed to talk him into letting me do it. It is all right if I take Nan out to dinner, isn’t it?”

“But of course. And you won’t say anything about what I just told you, will you?”

“Not if I can help it,” Walter said.

“But you can help it, if you choose. Nancy is more sensitive than she would like us to know. That is why she had to make up a second Walter for us who is not her brother, and that is why you will bruise her most unnecessarily if you uncover her little deception.”

“Surely you don’t approve?” Walter demanded.

“Is this a matter for approval or disapproval? This lack of discipline of the imagination is something that can do Nancy a great deal of harm and we will try to help her control it. But gently, Mr. Burton, and with care. I would be very grateful if you’d leave it up to me. You can hardly accomplish anything except damage if you take her to task for it over the dinner table.”

Walter felt that the interview was over, but instead of rising he leaned back in his chair. “Do you take this much interest in all the girls?”

Madame Septmoncel smiled again. “But of course. That is what I am for. That is what the school is for.” She reached towards a silver tray on her desk on which was a slender silver coffee pot and a cup and saucer. “I was about to have a cup of coffee. Will you join me?”

“Well—” Walter looked at the single cup. “Yes, please.”

Madame Septmoncel touched a bell on her desk, and almost immediately there came a knock at the door and in answer to her call there entered a tall blond girl in a blue satin cocktail dress.

“All ready to go out, Barbara?” Madame Septmoncel asked.

“Yes, Madame.”

“And who is it this time?”

“Harry. I’ve written it down in the book. We’re going to the opera and then if it’s all right with you, we’d like to go somewhere and have something to eat.”

“Of course, Barbara. You’re a senior this year and you have proved yourself worthy of my trust. Don’t forget to sign in the book when you come in, and leave the key in the blue Canton bowl.”

“Yes, Madame, thank you.”

“Would you be good enough to get me another cup and saucer for Mr. Burton? Mr. Burton, this is Barbara Greene. This is her fourth year here and I can’t imagine what it will be like next year without her.”

From a mahogany cabinet Barbara brought a second delicate cup and saucer and set it on the silver tray. “Is there anything else, Madame?”

“No, thank you, dear. Aggie says she feels much better this afternoon and will be up and about again tomorrow. Have a pleasant time at the opera.”

“Thank you, Madame. Good night. Good night, Mr. Burton.”

Barbara left, moving with a gliding grace completely unlike Deirdre’s bounce, but in its cool way equally effective. Madame Septmoncel smiled across the desk at Walter as she poured coffee and handed him a cup. “You would never believe, seeing Barbara now, that four years ago she was so clumsy she could hardly enter a room without knocking into something.”

“Good heavens, no!” Walter exclaimed.

“She is a brilliant girl,” Madame Septmoncel said. “In the four years she has been with me she has done her last two years of school and four years of college. Four years ago you might have been aware that she has brains, but her beauty was not yet visible.”

“It is now,” Walter said, dutifully and truthfully.

“You see, that is part of what we are for,” Madame Septmoncel said. “Barbara could have shared an apartment with another girl, or lived in a dormitory, or in one of those residence clubs that are solely for the purpose of chaperonage. We try to give our girls much more than that.”

“Yes,” Walter agreed. “I can see that you do.”

“There is no longer any such thing as a finishing school in the old sense, and in any case I am not interested in girls who do not wish to use their brains as well as their bodies. A truly cultured woman is charming both mentally and physically. Some of my girls come from wealthy families but have gone to school in the middle west where English is an unknown language. They have to learn to speak it almost as though it were French. Your sister, of course, had none of the obvious problems. She’s considered very highly at her dramatic school, and I don’t think she will need her imaginary Walter for very long. But the fact that she does need him right now shows that she has her own particular needs that we hope to fill. I limit my girls to fifteen in number, so that I am able to give each one the personal counsel she demands. As well as their regular courses the girls are given lessons here in music and art appreciation, in French, in diction, and in deportment, if that is needed. We go to the theatre, to the opera, to museums. What we aim for is a rounded, integrated personality.”

“I see,” Walter said. Now the violin was playing a melody, its tone lush like velvet, like firelight. Natalia’s violin was quite a different instrument from the one Walter had dutifully sawed at—and not touched in six months.

“We tend to forget,” Madame Septmoncel was saying, “in our feministic and emancipated world, that a woman is more than a voter, a stockholder, a highly paid executive. She should also be a work of art. She must have the ability to excite and surprise, to give pleasure and to exert over us a charm that has both sweetness and strength. Otherwise, regardless of her position or bank account, she has failed as a woman.”

“I see,” Walter said again.

Madame Septmoncel looked up, as though she, too, was listening to the winding notes of the violin. “Natalia,” she said softly. “If you know anything about music, Mr. Burton, you can hear that Natalia is one of the very special artists. I believe that she will be one of the great artists of our time. But more than that, Mr. Burton, she is also becoming a woman and she has the wisdom to realize that that, too, is an art, and that it takes as much work as does her violin.”

She stood up and Walter had perforce to rise, too. The interview could be prolonged no longer. He took Madame Septmoncel’s hand and again was surprised at the strength in the delicate, ringed fingers, and yet he felt that he should not be shaking these fingers but raising them to his lips and breathing in the subtle fragrance that came from the—what was she, the headmistress? Of this—school?

Deirdre was waiting with Nancy in the lemon satin room, a Nancy somehow less gauche and coltish than the child he had waved goodbye to a few months ago. She wore a dark wool dress he did not recognize that gave her a new assurance, and he felt a sudden pride as he saw that her childish prettiness was maturing into beauty. She flung her arms about his neck in spontaneous affection, then looked at him imploringly.

“Walter, it was so terribly sweet of you to come. Deirdre says you’re as nice as your picture but I told her you’re really ever so much nicer. Have you seen Madame?”

“Yes,” Walter said.

“Isn’t she gorgeous? I mean isn’t she the most beautiful woman you’ve ever met in the world?”

“Well,” Walter said shortsightedly, “I suppose for an elderly lady she’s quite good-looking. Have you signed in the book or whatever it was you’re supposed to do?”

“How did you know about signing in the book?”

“A girl came in while I was talking to your—to Madame Septmoncel, and said something about it.”

“Who was it?” Deirdre asked eagerly.

“I think she was called Barbara. Quite a looker.”

“Oh,” Deirdre said. “One of the madame’s pets. Of course, if you like that ice cold sort of look—”

“Oh, she’s gorgeous, all right, even if she is a snob,” Nancy said impatiently, “and I guess she was pretty much a slob before Madame got hold of her. Fifty pounds heavier at least. Come on, Walter, let’s go. I haven’t got Barbara’s privileges and I’m supposed to be in at a reasonable hour unless I get very special permission.”

Walter held out his hands to Deirdre. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Miss O’Hara.”

“Oh, just call me Deirdre. I’ve been calling you Walter. Anytime you’re in New York and you don’t feel like seeing Nancy, just give me a buzz.” She took his hand and smiled up at him, batting the long lashes he had earlier remarked on.

“Quite a girl, your friend Deirdre,” he said to Nancy as they went down the brownstone steps.

Nancy looked a little sulky. “Yes, and she was all ready to snatch you right out from under my nose.”

“Why shouldn’t she?” Walter asked pointedly. “After all, I’m your brother, and I do have dates with girls, you know. As a matter of fact I’d like to have one sometime with your friend Deirdre.”

Nancy looked deflated. “Okay,” she said vaguely. “I’ll see if I can arrange it sometime.”

“Will you? But you don’t have to arrange it for me, do you, Nancy? I can just call or write Deirdre myself, can’t I?”

She stopped still on the darkening street, looked up at him with an anxious expression. “Walter, are you mad at me or something?”

Walter hailed a taxi and said nothing until it had drawn up. Nancy ducked into it, and as he sat beside her all he said was “Where do you want to go?”

“Oh, I don’t care.”

“Well, think of someplace, quick. You know I don’t know this place too well.”

“Oh, well, the Penthouse Club, then. Barbara is there all the time.”

“Will she be there tonight?”

“No. Harry is going to take her to Cavanagh’s before they go to the opera. It’s Pagliacci tonight. Barbara loves it.”

“Who’s Harry?”

“Her elderly beau. He’s loaded, though. Walter, you’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

The taxi jerked its way through the crowded street, stopped behind a truck at a red light. “I don’t know whether I’m mad at you or not,” Walter said at last. “I just want to know what this is all about.”

“I tried to tell you in my letters,” Nancy said. “But it’s such a difficult thing to explain. You didn’t say anything to Father, did you?”

“No. I would have, but then I got this chance to come down on business, and knowing you I thought I’d come see for myself.”

“What do you mean, knowing me?”

“Well, I didn’t want Father after you with a cordon of police unless there was a real reason.”

Nancy laughed, but it wasn’t an anxious laugh. “That’s silly about the police, Walter. After all, it’s not like white slavery or anything.”

The last of the daylight was disappearing behind the buildings and lights were going on in streetlamps, shops, offices. In the gloom of the taxi Walter tried to read Nancy’s expression. Finally he said irritably, “Nancy, you’re my sister, and I’ve known you all my life, and this autumn is the first time you’ve ever been away from home, but I’m damned if I know anything about you.”

“You said damn!” Nancy exclaimed.

“So?”

“It just sounded so grown-up, coming from you.” She leaned back in the cab, crossing her legs so that they showed, long and slender, under the dark skirt.

Walter closed his mouth tight to keep from shouting back an angry retort, to keep from fighting as though they were brother and sister in the nursery again. “Nancy,” he said, “did you really expect me to believe that cock-and-bull story?”

Nancy lowered her head and all she responded was a whisper. “Yes.”

“Well, I don’t believe it.”

“Okay, Walter,” Nancy said softly, “don’t, then. It makes it easier.”

Now Walter shouted. “It makes what easier?”

“Oh, everything. You see, it was all such a surprise to me when I first wrote to you, but now I’m more used to the idea, and it doesn’t shock me anymore, and if you don’t believe me then I don’t have to worry about shocking you.”

“Nancy, you haven’t—”

“Haven’t what?”

“You know.”

“Then you do believe me!” Nancy exclaimed triumphantly.

“I don’t!”

The taxi stopped and this time it wasn’t a red light but the restaurant. Walter paid the driver, then opened the door for Nancy. She stood there in the light of a streetlamp, wearing a dark coat with a little fur collar and a hat with feathers, and he thought that she was much prettier than he had remembered. He took her arm as they went to the lobby and then up in the elevator, and now he had lost the sense of excitement and pleasure that had come to him talking with Deirdre, and wished that Nancy had never written him, or that he had had the sense to show the letter to his father.

He turned to her in the elevator and saw that she was staring with a serious, considering expression at her reflection in the long mirror. “Nancy,” he said, “Father hasn’t shown me any of your letters to him, but I know you’ve written. What have you said to him?”

“What do you suppose I’ve said?” she asked. “What he wants to hear. How I’m loving dramatic school.”

“And aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course I am,” she said impatiently.

“Go on.”

“How we all adore Madame. What terrific school spirit we have. All perfectly true. We do. And I told them how we love the concerts, the dressing for dinner every night, and how we take turns serving coffee in the drawing room afterwards. We’d be at home in Buckingham Palace after a year or two under Madame.”

“Or?” Walter asked.

“Yes, or.” She grinned. “You do believe me?”

“No,” Walter said. “Why should I? Ever since Mother’s death your life has been nothing but a web of lies.”

“Do you think that’s when it started?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Walter darling, I’m an actress. I’m not going to dramatic school for fun, no matter what you and Father may think. Part of my life has always been make-believe. Part of it always will. It’s one of the most important pieces of an actress’s luggage. As long as I know which is fact and which is fiction, that’s all that matters.”

“But do you know?”

“Yes, Walter, I do. What I wrote you about is hardly a joke.”

“Nancy,” he said. “Maybe you can keep fact and fiction clear in your own mind, but how do you expect other people to do it, too? How can anybody know when you’re telling the truth?”

“Anybody who really knew me would know,” Nancy said sadly. “But then of course you’ve never bothered to understand me, Walter. We’ve had a lot of fun together, we’ve had our share of sibling quarrels. I suppose we love each other quite deeply, but we don’t really know each other at all.”

“Do any two people?”

“I think Madame knows me,” Nancy said. “I’m sure I know Deirdre far better than I do you. And most of the other girls. I’m not sure about Barbara or Natalia. They are Madame’s specials and they are special.”

“Would you like to be one of Madame’s specials?”

“Of course. And I will be. I just haven’t been there long enough.”

“And how does what you wrote me about fit in with this?”

Nancy smiled dreamily at the waiter as he removed her hors d’oeuvre plate. “I feel differently about it now. Then it was only from things Deirdre had said, and she isn’t one of Madame’s specials, in spite of all that Madame has done for her.”

“Does Deirdre think Madame has done so much for her?”

“Oh, sure, Deirdre’s no fool. She’s just jealous.” Now the waiter put a dish in front of her, removing the lid with a flourish and looking at Nancy for approval. Nancy smiled at him again. “It looks just beautiful,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

A few months ago, Walter thought, waiters were not looking to Nancy for special approval. Had she acquired the ability to excite and surprise that Madame Septmoncel had spoken about, the charm that has both weakness and strength?

“Of course,” she said seriously to Walter, “if you look at it objectively, it can be a tremendous help to my career. I’m going to be a great actress, Walter, and I’ve learned enough in the past couple of months to know that this takes ruthlessness as well as talent. Contacts can be used quite cold-bloodedly, you know. It isn’t necessary to get emotionally involved. A lot of money can be quite useful, too.”

“Is this the role,” Walter asked in distress, “or is this Nancy?”

“Which?” she asked, smiling at him, spoiling it by batting her eyes in a manner too reminiscent of Deirdre’s.

“And what about marriage,” he asked, “and children, and all the things a normal woman wants?”

“Am I a normal woman?” she asked back. “Or do normal women really want these things? Isn’t it something we’ve been made to think we want simply for the preservation of the species?”

“Nancy,” Walter Burton said desperately, “if any of these things is—or should become—true, you’d have to give up all ideas of marriage. You’re young and ambitious now, but you may feel differently later on and then it would be too late.”

“But why?” she asked gaily.

“Don’t you know? Don’t you know that no decent man would have you?”

“I don’t know any such thing. Many of Madame’s girls have made excellent marriages. And most of them have her to thank for them, too. And they do, you know. There’s hardly a week one or two doesn’t come for dinner, and usually with their husbands, so I’ve had a chance to see just how well they’ve done.”

“Nancy,” Walter said sharply, “I hate to see you getting so under the influence of any one woman. It’s a spell, really.”

“Oh, no,” Nancy said definitely. “I know exactly what I’m doing. Madame isn’t using me. I’m using her. She knows it, too. That’s why I am going to be one of her specials. She doesn’t like blind adoration. Natalia’s going to be a famous violinist and it’s mostly thanks to Madame and she knows it, but she isn’t thanking Madame, she’s simply using her as a stepping stone.”

“And how much help would Madame be if Natalia didn’t have talent?”

“Oh, talent,” Nancy said impatiently. “Thousands of people have talents. Thousands of actresses have talent but they’ll go on having milkshakes in a drugstore when I’m having champagne and caviar.”

“And for this you are willing to—to let yourself be bought and sold?”

“Whenever an actress signs for a part, what else is she doing but selling herself? What else is the management doing but buying her? I’m just making myself more—more interesting. Maybe you might say more available. Walter, I’d like some wine with this dinner.”

“You’re not twenty-one,” Walter said.

“Oh, you’re so stuffy. I could pass for twenty-one without any trouble, couldn’t I?”

“I don’t know,” Walter said grimly, “but you’re not going to try. Nancy, when I said goodbye to you in September you were still wet behind the ears—” He flung his fork against his plate with so much force that the waiter came hurrying up, asking, “Anything wrong, sir?”

Nancy smiled up at him again. “Everything is just lovely.” She looked over at Walter tolerantly and raised her lovely brows ever so slightly. She did not look at the waiter, but he smiled at her as though they had a very special secret between them.

“Now what are you so furious about?” Nancy asked as the waiter discreetly withdrew.

“Believing you. I don’t mean to, but you’ve always managed to make me, no matter how outrageous your stories.” Then he pointed a sudden angry finger at her. “But hey, what about me, Nancy? What about your dear friend Walter Burton who just happens to have your surname?”

Nancy laughed merrily. “Oh, Walter darling, that was just sort of self-defense. All of the other girls have someone and you just came in so handy.”

“What about Arnold?”

Nancy laughed again. “Him? I keep his picture hidden in the bottom of my suitcase.”

“But he writes you three letters a week at least, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Do you answer them?”

“Oh, just often enough to keep him hanging on, as sort of insurance.”

“Nancy, that’s—that’s dastardly.”

Nancy grinned. “Sure. I’m a dastard.”

“Nancy, you didn’t have to make me up. There isn’t only Arnold. There are half a dozen other boys at home who pant whenever they see you.”

“Callow infants.”

“But you’ve let Madame Septmoncel think there isn’t anybody, haven’t you?”

“But there isn’t anybody. Nobody that counts. Only Walter Burton. And that’s true, Walter. You’re not in the same class with these other idiots. You’re the only one worth making up a story about.”

He tried not to be pleased; he couldn’t believe her flattery any more than anything else she said.

“But why must you make up a story, Nancy? Why can’t you just take things as they are?”

“Because I don’t like things as they are. Well, at any rate I never have until this year. I don’t think I’ll be making up stories very much longer.”

Walter looked away from her, down at his plate where his dinner still lay, almost untouched.

“Did you tell your Madame Septmoncel how Mother died?”

“No. It’s far too fantastic.” Suddenly she pushed back her chair. “I want to go home.”

“Home?”

“Not home, you idiot. To—to the school.”

“The school?”

“It is a school—in a way. I’m learning something for the first time in my life. I’m going to the ladies’ room, Walter. I’ll wait for you by the elevator.”

He paid the bill to a disapproving waiter, feeling that he had handled neither Nancy nor the situation as they should have been handled, and that he knew no more than when he had first gone down the street and climbed the brownstone steps and seen the polished brass plaque: MADAME SEPTMONCEL’S RESIDENCE FOR YOUNG LADIES.

Nancy was waiting for him by the elevator, her face composed and freshly powdered, but, he thought, rather pale. They went down in the elevator in silence and stood out in the street, waiting as the doorman blew his whistle for a taxi. No, Walter thought, looking at Nancy with her soft, honey-blond hair shining out under the hat with feathers and falling softly against the little fur collar of her coat. She wouldn’t get away with saying she was twenty-one, that she couldn’t do, except for her eyes, and her eyes had always been ancient, even when she was a tiny child.

“So what are you going to do?” Nancy asked as she leaned back against the leather seat of the taxi.

“About what?”

“About me. About what I wrote you.”

For a long time Walter was silent. The taxi moved like a small bug through the streets, wriggling past cabs, past buses, past trucks. At last he said, “Nothing.”

Almost imperceptibly she relaxed. “Nothing?”

“No.”

“Why not? I thought you’d come to save me.”

“But you don’t want to be saved, do you, Nancy?”

She smiled again, the smile that was meant to be far more than twenty-one. “Not particularly.”

“And I can’t do it to Father,” he said. “I can’t say anything while I’m not sure. You’ve done that at least, Nancy; you can have at least that satisfaction. You planted a doubt in my mind. I’m not sure.”

The passing lights illuminated her face, let it fall into shadow, and then brightened it again. She sat quietly, relaxed, her brow clear and innocent, the tender corners of her lips just faintly turned up. “Darling Walter,” she said gently, “you don’t want to believe it. You’ll be much happier not believing it. That’s best for us both, I see it now. But you’ll come again and take me out to dinner, won’t you?”

“I suppose so. If there’s any reason for me to leave the office.”

“And you’ll just be Walter Burton who happens to have the same name that I do?”

“If it’s that important to you.”

The taxi turned down the quiet street. “Where are you staying?” Nancy asked.

“At the Y.”

“Don’t get out with me. I’ll run on in. You keep the taxi and go on.”

Surprisingly Walter agreed; he felt old and tired and the thought of climbing the brownstone steps with Nancy, of going into the building, seemed a physical effort of which he was not capable. “I’ll wait to see that you get in safely.”

She leaned to him and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Good night, big brother.”

She slipped out, slammed the taxi door, and ran up the steps. The streetlights cast a pale glow on the brass plaque. She stood for a moment searching through her small velvet bag for the key, found it, put it in the door, and opened it. As she closed it behind her she heard the taxi drawing away and she sighed with satisfaction. It had been a most successful evening. She wondered if Deirdre was asleep.

She paused at the mahogany table under the mirror to sign her name and the hour in the book. The door to the lemon satin parlor was closed and voices came from it, masculine laughter and girls’ giggles; a couple of the girls must be having dates there. The door to Madame Septmoncel’s drawing room opened and out came a man in evening clothes, carrying a top hat in his hands. He was followed by Madame herself in pearl-gray chiffon. As he passed Nancy he looked at her appraisingly and whispered something to Madame. Madame merely smiled and nodded, saying as she passed, “Wait just a moment before you go upstairs, Nancy, dear.” She went to the front door with the impeccable gentleman, and stood there a moment talking to him. They were speaking in what Nancy took to be French, and so low that the girl could not understand their words. Then the gentleman kissed Madame’s hand (as Walter would have liked to have kissed it that afternoon) and left, and Madame came back to Nancy.

“Well, and did you have a nice evening with your Walter, my dear Nancy?”

“Yes, thank you, Madame.”

“You’re in a little earlier than I expected.”

“Walter was—Walter was tired, Madame.”

“And you? Are you tired?”

“No, Madame. I’m never tired.”

“That’s my Nancy. Well, come on into the drawing room, then, and sit in front of the fire and have a cup of coffee with me. Since we didn’t expect you back so soon I told Natalia she might use your room for a little while tonight. It’s been a busy evening.”

Nancy stood very still in the dark hall, trying to stare through the gloom at Madame.

“You mean she’s practicing?”

Madame laughed. “If you want to call it that. But Natalia is so finished at everything she does one can hardly call it practicing, can one?” She moved slowly down the hall, moving with a grace that Barbara only imperfectly and Deirdre never would be able to copy. Nancy stood still, for the first time uncertain, her heart beating rapidly, a faint tremor of suspicion tingling her flesh. Why hadn’t Walter come in with her, bringing with him the safe fabric of lies? Why had he left her? What was happening?

Madame turned around. The tiger-striped cat slid out of the drawing room and down the hall, brushing deliberately, smoothly, against Nancy’s ankles.

“Come, Nancy,” Madame said. “I think we’ll find we have a good deal to talk about.”