Lisa had a few minutes in hand at the end of her lunch hour so she popped in to Model Gowns to say hello to Magda.
“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed the latter. “It has been a madhouse here. Look!” and she waved a hand towards the Model Gowns in their mahogany cabinets.
Their ranks were indeed seriously depleted; Mrs. Bruce Pogue and Mrs. Martin Wallruss had been succeeded by others of their ilk and the frocks which now remained had very ample room to breathe. Lisa looked, hardly daring, and saw her beloved in the first glance. Magda noted her involuntary tremor.
“Oh, go and look,” she said. “See if there is anything left to tempt you.”
Lisa forced herself to laugh.
“I’ve found the one I want already,” she said.
Magda looked at her again. Ah, well, it was after all a case of true love: she resolved suddenly to indulge it. There was in any case the more serious matter of the cultivation of the taste: if that should involve a degree of heartbreak, so be it.
“Oh yes, the little robe de jeune fille. Though I’m afraid all the jeunes filles with cash in this city have more the idea of attempting to look like women of the world, it is only their mothers who want to look young, that frock is no use to anyone when it is too small for les mamans and too young for les débutantes. I am tired of it: why don’t you come in here in your lunch hour tomorrow after you have changed, and try it on? It is your size I think precisely. You can have a fantaisie for a few moments, it is good for the soul. Wear your high heels, to get the right effect.”
“Oh,” said Lisa, shaken, “could I really? That would be wonderful . . . ”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Magda, “but I won’t be held responsible if I hear later that you have robbed a bank in order to buy it. Of course I may sell it between now and tomorrow—we’ll just have to see.”
“Oh, please don’t say that,” said Lisa. “Please don’t sell it.”
“That is a promise I could never make,” said Magda, laughing heartily and with sincerity.
Lisette was, of course, everything which could have been hoped, have been dreamed; like all the great works of the French couture, it was designed to look beautiful not simply as a thing in itself, but as the clothing of a female form. It took on then the property of vitality and movement; that is, of rhythm: it became finally incarnate. Lisa stood, overwhelmed, staring into the great cheval glass. She could see at the same time the back view reflected in the glass at the other side of the salon. She swayed very slightly, to see the effect of the three tiers of the skirt floating on the air. The frock fitted her exactly: the bodice was just short of being tight. Her arms and legs, appearing beyond the flounces at the shoulders, the hem, seemed now to be not thin, but slender. The frock changed her absolutely; the revelation which had come upon her when she had first been shown the Model Gowns was now complete.
There was nothing which needed to be said, and Magda herself was for once silent, at least for one entire minute. She smiled.
“Ah me,” she sighed. “Shall we deliver it, Mademoiselle, or will you take it with you?”
Lisa laughed.
“I’ll wear it,” she said. “Could you wrap my other clothes? Make out my bill as usual.”
At this moment Miss Cartright appeared, coming to relieve Magda for the latter’s luncheon break.
“How now,” she said. “Is Lisa modelling for you now, Magda? We never thought of that.”
“It is her lunch hour,” said Magda. “At this moment she is merely a customer, she is trying on a frock which has tempted her but the sale is not so far made.”
“Yes, I see,” said Miss Cartright. “How big is the sting? Seventy-five, is it? It’s a bargain all right.”
“You know,” said Magda, “I’m wondering if it won’t have to be a greater one still if it hasn’t sold by the middle of next week. You see, it is getting dirty, they all do, these whites.”
“That’s so,” said Miss Cartright. “Well, fifty after next Wednesday, say, if it hasn’t gone by then. But that isn’t likely. How are we doing otherwise? Oh yes, I see. Jolly good! Well, to our onions; you must be starving—go to lunch.”
Lisa retired to the changing room and having replaced Lisette on the hanger went to sit for the free time remaining in Hyde Park. If Lisette were to be reduced to fifty guineas she would have almost enough money in her Post Office money box to pay for it. The thought of spending this sum, which was very much more than she had ever had at her disposal before and sufficient for at least ten ordinary frocks at the usual retail prices, was utterly intoxicating.