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_ They had been to Versailles and had dined there. A tram had
sufficed to take them out; but for the return, Gerald, who had
been drinking champagne, would not be content with less than a
carriage. Further, he insisted on entering Paris by way of the
Bois and the Arc de Triomphe. Thoroughly to appease his conceit,
it would have been necessary to swing open the gates of honour in
the Arc and allow his fiacre to pass through; to be forced to
drive round the monument instead of under it hurt the sense of
fitness which champagne engenders. Gerald was in all his pride
that day. He had been displaying the wonders to Sophia, and he
could not escape the cicerone's secret feeling: that he himself
was somehow responsible for the wonders. Moreover, he was
exceedingly satisfied with the effect produced by Sophia.
Sophia, on arriving in Paris with the ring on her triumphant
finger, had timidly mentioned the subject of frocks. None would
have guessed from her tone that she was possessed by the desire
for French clothes as by a devil. She had been surprised and
delighted by the eagerness of Gerald's response. Gerald, too, was
possessed by a devil. He thirsted to see her in French clothes. He
knew some of the shops and ateliers in the Rue de la Paix, the Rue
de la Chaussee d'Antin, and the Palais Royal. He was much more
skilled in the lore of frocks than she, for his previous business
in Paris had brought him into relations with the great firms; and
Sophia suffered a brief humiliation in the discovery that his
private opinion of her dresses was that they were not dresses at
all. She had been aware that they were not Parisian, nor even of
London; but she had thought them pretty good. It healed her wound,
however, to reflect that Gerald had so marvellously kept his own
counsel in order to spare her self-love. Gerald had taken her to
an establishment in the Chaussee d'Antin. It was not one of what
Gerald called les grandes maisons, but it was on the very fringe
of them, and the real haute couture was practised therein; and
Gerald was remembered there by name.
Sophia had gone in trembling and ashamed, yet in her heart
courageously determined to emerge uncompromisingly French. But the
models frightened her. They surpassed even the most fantastic
things that she had seen in the streets. She recoiled before them
and seemed to hide for refuge in Gerald, as it were appealing to
him for moral protection, and answering to him instead of to the
saleswoman when the saleswoman offered remarks in stiff English.
The prices also frightened her. The simplest trifle here cost
sixteen pounds; and her mother's historic 'silk,' whose
elaborateness had cost twelve pounds, was supposed to have
approached the inexpressible! Gerald said that she was not to
think about prices. She was, however, forced by some instinct to
think about prices--she who at home had scorned the narrowness of
life in the Square. In the Square she was understood to be quite
without commonsense, hopelessly imprudent; yet here, a spring of
sagacity seemed to be welling up in her all the time, a continual
antidote against the general madness in which she found herself.
With extraordinary rapidity she had formed a habit of preaching
moderation to Gerald. She hated to 'see money thrown away,' and
her notion of the boundary line between throwing money away and
judiciously spending it was still the notion of the Square.
Gerald would laugh. But she would say, piqued and blushing, but
self-sure: "You can laugh!" It was all deliciously agreeable.
On this evening she wore the first of the new costumes. She had
worn it all day. Characteristically she had chosen something which
was not too special for either afternoon or evening, for either
warm or cold weather. It was of pale blue taffetas striped in a
darker blue, with the corsage cut in basques, and the underskirt
of a similar taffetas, but unstriped. The effect of the ornate
overskirt falling on the plain underskirt with its small double
volant was, she thought, and Gerald too, adorable. The waist was
higher than any she had had before, and the crinoline expansive.
Tied round her head with a large bow and flying blue ribbons under
the chin, was a fragile flat capote like a baby's bonnet, which
allowed her hair to escape in front and her great chignon behind.
A large spotted veil flew out from the capote over the chignon.
Her double skirts waved amply over Gerald's knees in the carriage,
and she leaned back against the hard cushions and put an arrogant
look into her face, and thought of nothing but the intense
throbbing joy of life, longing with painful ardour for more and
more pleasure, then and for ever.
As the carriage slipped downwards through the wide, empty gloom of
the Champs Elysees into the brilliant Paris that was waiting for
them, another carriage drawn by two white horses flashed upwards
and was gone in dust. Its only occupant, except the coachman and
footman, was a woman. Gerald stared after it.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "That's Hortense!"
It might have been Hortense, or it might not. But he instantly
convinced himself that it was. Not every evening did one meet
Hortense driving alone in the Champs Elysees, and in August too!
"Hortense?" Sophia asked simply.
"Yes. Hortense Schneider."
"Who is she?"
"You've never heard of Hortense Schneider?"
"No!"
"Well! Have you ever heard of Offenbach?"
"I--I don't know. I don't think so."
He had the mien of utter incredulity. "You don't mean to say
you've never heard of Bluebeard?"
"I've heard of Bluebeard, of course," said she. "Who hasn't?"
"I mean the opera--Offenbach's."
She shook her head, scarce knowing even what an opera was.
"Well, well! What next?"
He implied that such ignorance stood alone in his experience.
Really he was delighted at the cleanness of the slate on which he
had to write. And Sophia was not a bit alarmed. She relished
instruction from his lips. It was a pleasure to her to learn from
that exhaustless store of worldly knowledge. To the world she
would do her best to assume omniscience in its ways, but to him,
in her present mood, she liked to play the ignorant, uninitiated
little thing.
"Why," he said, "the Schneider has been the rage since last year
but one. Absolutely the rage."
"I do wish I'd noticed her!" said Sophia.
"As soon as the Varietes reopens we'll go and see her," he
replied, and then gave his detailed version of the career of
Hortense Schneider.
More joys for her in the near future! She had yet scarcely
penetrated the crust of her bliss. She exulted in the dazzling
destiny which comprised freedom, fortune, eternal gaiety, and the
exquisite Gerald.
As they crossed the Place de la Concorde, she inquired, "Are we
going back to the hotel?"
"No," he said. "I thought we'd go and have supper somewhere, if it
isn't too early."
"After all that dinner?"
"All what dinner? You ate about five times as much as me, anyhow!"
"Oh, I'm ready!" she said.
She was. This day, because it was the first day of her French
frock, she regarded as her debut in the dizzy life of capitals.
She existed in a rapture of bliss, an ecstasy which could feel no
fatigue, either of body or spirit. _
Read next: BOOK III SOPHIA: CHAPTER II - SUPPER: PART II
Read previous: BOOK III SOPHIA: CHAPTER I - THE ELOPEMENT: PART II
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