WHILE life and the lust of lovely things remain to Darcy Cole, she will
not forget the thrilling experience of that day and other shopping days
to follow. When it was all over she possessed:
_Item_: A dark-blue serge business suit, cut with a severity of line
which on a less graciously girlish figure would have been grim, with a
small, trim, expensive hat and the smartest of tan shoes and tan
gloves. Clad in that Darcy suggested a demure and business-like
bluebird.
_Item_: A black-and-white small-checked suit with just a little more
latitude of character to it, and, to go with this, black patent-leather
shoes from the best shop in town, and a black sailor hat, with a flash
of white feather in it. In that Darcy resembled a white-breasted chat,
which is perhaps the very most correct and smartest bird that flies.
_Item—several items, in fact_: Wonderful but unobvious garments,
conjured by the magic touch of Gloria from the purchase of a whole bolt
of white, filmy crêpe de chine and several bolts of baby-blue ribbon,
together with well-chosen odds and ends of laces; no less wonderful,
but much more visible négligées, with long, lustrous rhythmical lines,
devised by the same Gloria from the bargain purchase of an odd lot of
pink crêpe de chine; arrayed in which Darcy was able to give herself a
very fair imitation of a complacent though pale flamingo.
_Item_: An evening gown of shimmering silver and blue, carried out, in
the curve of the daintiest of silk stockings, to the tip of fairy-gift
silver slippers; and over it a blue velvet wrap lined and trimmed with
an old chinchilla coat, which Sensible Auntie had given her several
years before; wherein Darcy felt like some winged and shining thing
come down from a moonlit cloud.
That was the end of eight hundred of Aunt Sarah’s, hard, round,
beautiful dollars. But not of the wonderful trip to Clothes-Land. For,
at the last, Gloria produced the most stunning of traveling coats,
dark-blue cheviot, with a quaint little cape, the whole lined with
silken gray—a gray with a touch of under-color to match the blue warmth
behind the gray of Darcy’s eyes.
“For your wedding present, my dear,” explained Gloria mischievously.
And when the girl wept for sheer delight, her mentor abused her and
called her “Amanda,” and threatened her with dreadful reprisals unless
she at once dried her eyes so that account could be duly taken of her.
Of that stock-taking Gloria, re-creatrix, made no report to the
subject. But this is what her gratified eyes saw.
A girl who held herself straight like an Indian and at ease like an
animal. Where there had been sallow cheeks and an unwholesome
flabbiness, the blood now shone in living pink through the lucent skin.
The eyes were twice as large as when, the year before, Darcy had set
out upon her determined beauty quest; but that was because the sagging
lines beneath had disappeared and the eyes themselves, deep gray
against clear white, were softly brilliant with health. Above the
broad, smooth, candid forehead, the hair, so deep brown as to be almost
black, played the happy truant in little waves and whorls as delicate
and errant as blown smoke. The chin was set and firm—that was Andy
Dunne’s discipline of soul and body. Above it the mouth smiled as
naturally and unconsciously as it had formerly drooped, and two little
dimples had come to live in the comers. Beyond and above the sheer
formative change in the girl, she was so pulsating, so palpitant with
life that, even as she stood quiescent before Gloria’s appraising eyes,
she seemed to sway to some impalpable rhythm of the blood.
Yet Gloria was not wholly content. Hers was a wisdom that went deep.
The re-created Darcy was a notable triumph, to be sure; looking upon
her handiwork, Gloria found it good, nor did she doubt that others
would find it good. But what of Darcy’s own bearing toward all these
changes? Had she found herself? Until that question was settled in the
affirmative, Gloria, re-creatrix, would not be satisfied.
“Just the same I’d like to see Jack Remsen or any other man look at her
as she is now once without looking twice,” Gloria challenged the
masculine world on behalf of her candidate for troubles and honors in
the Great Open Lists.
Not men alone, but women as well, became addicted to that second look
when Darcy passed their way in her new feathers. To her housemates the
change, now forced upon their reluctant acceptance, was a matter of
bewilderment if not of actual perturbation. Holcomb Lee, justified of
his prophecies, exulted over the fact to such a point that Maud Raines
felt it her womanly duty to fix a quarrel upon him. Undismayed, Holcomb
took Darcy out to dinner. (“Never, never, never in the world would I
have accepted, Gloria,” that dangerous young person assured her mentor,
“if Maud Raines hadn’t been so catty and sneery about Holcomb’s drawing
me.”) And Miss Raines hastily drowned her trumped-up grievance in a
flood of alarmed tears. Even matter-of-fact Paul Wood, Helen’s
betrothed, was impressed to the point of admiring comment.
“That chrysalis has hatched for fair,” said he.
“Hatched!” retorted Helen. “It didn’t hatch. It exploded!”
She and Maud wished to know, not without asperity, first why Darcy was
getting her trousseau in advance of the season; next, why she was
wearing it, item by item. Darcy was wearing the unaccustomed finery for
a perfectly sound and feminine reason which she did not feel called
upon to expound for the enlightenment of the two fiancées. She felt
taller, straighter, and more independent in it. Moreover, she found it
a business asset. Palpably affected by the richness and variety of her
wardrobe, B. Riegel had proffered a guarantee basis of work which
assured her future income. Thus the clothes bade fair to pay for
themselves. But on alternate afternoons, Darcy, faithful to her
training, garbed herself in rusty sweater, short skirt, and shapeless
shoes, and did her stunt through Central Park. Her term at Andy’s
academy having expired, she had taken on a new schedule of two hours
per week: that being all, her preceptor assured her, that was needed
for the preservation of her fitness “to jump in the ring and put ’em up
with the Big Feller himself at the clang of the bell.” A slight
exaggeration, but to Darcy, a grateful one.
With ever-growing approval, Gloria saw the girl accomplish that
distinctively feminine feat known as “settling into your clothes.”
“My dear,” she remarked one day when the two had come in from a walk,
“if Monty Veyze could see us together now, I wouldn’t have a chance
with him.”
Darcy grabbed and hugged her. “You’re talking nonsense, and you know
it. No man in the world would look at me if you were in the same
block.”
“Wouldn’t they!” retorted the actress ungrammatically. “I’d hate to put
it to the test of a regular constituted jury.”
“I’d have to bar Mr. Remsen from the jury box,” smiled Darcy.
“Have you seen Jack again?”
“Ran into him, plop, on Fifth Avenue yesterday.”
“Were you in your best bib-and-tucker?”
“The black-and-white check.”
“Did he look through you?” asked the actress.
“N-not exactly.”
“Did he look past you?” asked the actress, “N-o-o-o.”
“Well, did he look at you?” she persisted. “Yes. But he didn’t know
me.”
“I’m sure he didn’t,” chuckled Gloria. “Didn’t you bow to him?” she
added. “Next time you meet a nice young man like Jack Remsen, you march
straight up to him and take him by the beard—”
“He hasn’t got a beard.”
“—metaphorically speaking, and ask him if he isn’t ashamed of himself
for not remembering you. He will be. Oh, never fear he will be!”
Darcy pursed her red lips up to a funny little assumption of prudery.
“He’d think me a forward young hussy.”
“Let him. You’ve been backward long enough.”
“I—I—I haven’t really got used to—to the new feeling yet,” said the
girl shyly.
“To being pretty? Say it out. It’s easy enough to get used to. Just
feel as pretty as you look. Go on a perpetual parade until you learn
the right kind of self-consciousness. Being a woman is an asset, not a
liability in life. When you’ve absorbed that powerful truth, come to me
and I’ll impart some more wisdom.” She fell into thought. “Darcy,” she
said portentously.
“Well?”
“I’ve got a grand and glorious idea for a grand and glorious
feeling—like Mr. Briggs’s.”
“Don’t keep me waiting. I can’t stand suspense.”
“I’m going to give a party for you, with the brides for side dishes,
but principally to celebrate your graduation.”
“Oh, joy!” cried Darcy.
Joy proved to be a mild and inexpressive word for the party. So far as
Miss Darcy Cole was concerned, it was a triumph. The two brides, each
sufficiently attractive in her own type, simply paled away before their
unconsidered flat-mate. Gloria didn’t pale away. No rivalry could
shadow her superb individuality. With her guest of honor she shared the
laurels of a victorious evening. Stimulated to her best self by the
realization of success, conscious of a buoyant body, perfectly clad,
and a soaring spirit, Darcy unwittingly took and held the center of the
stage, into which Gloria cunningly and unobtrusively maneuvered her. At
the end of the long night of fun, Miss Cole sat enthroned. Miss Cole
had sung like a lark. Miss Cole had danced like an elf. Miss Cole had
laughed like a spirit of mirth. Miss Cole had fairly radiated a
wholesome, keen, full-blooded, high-spirited gayety and happiness shot
through with that indefinable glow of womanhood which is as mysterious
and unmistakable as the firefly’s light and perhaps as unconsciously
purposeful.
One thing only detracted from Gloria Greene’s satisfaction in the
triumph of her protégée. Jacob Remsen had not been a witness to it.
Mr. Remsen was in retirement.
“I do want you and Jack to like each other,” said Gloria to Darcy, in
the inevitable talk-over which followed the grand triumphal party.
“Of course,” returned the girl softly and warmly regarding her friend.
“And of course I’m going to like him just as hard as ever I can, if
he’ll let me.”
“For your sake” was the implication of that warmth, which would have
considerably astonished Gloria had she appreciated it. But how should
she know the interpretation given by the girl to that casual kiss
overseen in the studio? Gloria’s mind was running in quite a different
direction.
Sequels to the party and to Darcy’s success were promptly manifested in
the form of sundry boxes and parcels bearing fashionable trade insignia
which flowed in upon Bachelor-Girls’ Hall. But not for Miss Raines or
Miss Barrett. Out of her sumptuous surplus, Miss Cole was pleased to
present a dozen American Beauty roses to Miss Raines and a five-pound
box of “special” candies to Miss Barrett, explaining kindly that she
could not possibly use them herself. That was the glory-crowned summit
of a delicate revenge, long overdue. “Poor Darcy,” indeed!
So Darcy came into her own. One year Gloria had given her. The year had
not yet gone. But most of Aunt Sarah’s gift had. Who cared? Not Darcy.
She had won her heritage of womanhood. Where, a few brief months
before—and she could laugh now at the pangs and hardships of those
months which were so small a price to pay for the results!—she had
looked a worn thirty years old and felt like a sapless leaf, she now
looked a budding twenty and felt like a baby with a drum.
Life was her drum.
All its stirring rataplan, however, could not quite drown out the grim
voice of reckoning, which spoke with the accent of Sir Montrose Veyze,
Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England.