In the great human democracy, revolution cannot uncrown the builder of
bridges to place upon his throne the builder of pantry shelves. Gray
matter and blue blood and white pigment are not dynasties of man's
making. Accident of birth, and not primogeniture, makes master minds and
mulattoes, seamstresses and rich men's sons. Wharf-rats are more often
born than made.
That is why, in this dynasty not of man's making, weavers gone blind
from the intricacies of their queen's coronation robe, can kneel at her
hem to kiss the cloth of gold that cursed them. A peasant can look on
at a poet with no thought to barter his black bread and lentils for
a single gossamer fancy. Backstair slaveys vie with each other whose
master is more mighty. And this is the story of Millie Moores who, with
no anarchy in her heart and no feud with the human democracy, could
design for women to whom befell the wine and pearl dog-collars of life,
frocks as sheer as web, and on her knees beside them, her mouth full of
pins and her sole necklace a tape-measure, thrill to see them garbed in
the glory of her labor.
Indeed, when the iridescent bubble of reputation floated out from her
modest dressmaking rooms in East Twenty-third Street, Millie Moores,
whom youth had rushed past, because she had no leisure for it, felt her
heart open like a grateful flower when life brought her more chores to
do. And when one day a next-year's-model limousine drew up outside her
small doorway with the colored fashion sheet stuck in the glass panel,
and one day another, and then one spring day three of them in shining
procession along her curb, something cheeped in Millie Moores's heart
and she doubled her prices.
And then because ladies long of purse and short of breath found the
three dark flights difficult, and because the first small fruit of
success burst in Millie Moores's mouth, releasing its taste of wine,
she withdrew her three-figure savings account from the Manhattan Trust
Company, rented an elevator-service, mauve-upholstered establishment on
middle Broadway, secured the managerial services of a slender young man
fresh from the Louis Quinze rooms of Madam Roth--Modes, Fifth Avenue,
tripled her prices, and emerged from the brown cocoon of Twenty-third
Street, Madam Moores, Modiste.
Two years later, three perfect-thirty-six sibyls promenaded the mauve
display rooms, tempting those who waddle with sleeveless frocks that
might have been designed for the Venus of Milo warmed to life.
The presiding young man, slim and full of the small ways that
ingratiate, and with a pomaded glory of tow hair rippling back in a
double wave that women's fingers itched to caress and men's hands itched
to thresh, pushed forward the mauve velvet chairs with a waiter's
servility, but none of his humility; officiated over the crowded pages
of the crowded appointment-book, jotted down measurements with an
imperturbability that grew for every inch the tape-line measured over
and above.
Last, Madam Moores, her small figure full of nerves; two spots of red
high on her cheeks; her erstwhile graying hairs, a bit premature and
but a sprinkling of them, turned to the inward of a new and elaborate
coiffure; and meeting this high tide with a smile, newly enhanced by
bridge-work and properly restrained to that dimension of insolence
demanded by the rich of those who serve them well.
In the springtime Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue turn lightly to thoughts
of Narragansett Pier and Bronx Park. Fifth Avenue sheds its furs and
Sixth Avenue its woolen underwear. At the dusk of one such day, when the
taste of summer was like poppy leaves crushed between the teeth, and
open streetcars and open shirtwaists blossomed forth even as the
distant larkspur in the distant field, Madam Moores beheld the
electric-protection door swing behind the last customer and relaxed
frankly against a table piled high with fabrics of a dozen sheens.
"Whew! Thank heavens, she's gone!"
To a symphony of six-o'clock whistles the rumble of machines from the
workrooms suddenly ceased.
"Turn out the shower lights, Phonzie, and see that Van Nord's black lace
goes out in time for opera to-night. When she telephoned at noon I told
her it was on the way."
Mr. Alphonse Michelson hurtled a mauve-colored footstool and hastened
rearward toward the swinging-door that led to the emptying workrooms.
The tallest of the perfect-thirty-sixes, stepping out of her beaded
slippers into sturdier footwear of the street, threw him a smile as
he passed that set her glittering earrings and metal-yellow ringlets
bobbing like bells in a breeze.
"Hand me the shoe-buttoner, Phonzie. The doctor says stooping is bad for
my hair-pins."
Their laughter, light as foam, met and mingled.
"Oh, you nervy Gertie!"
"What's your hurry, Phonzie dearie?"
"I don't see you stopping me."
"Fine chance, with her crouching over there, ready to spring."
"Hang around, sweetness. Maybe I'm not on duty, and I'll take you
to supper if you've not got a date with one of your million-dollar
Charlies."
"Soft pedal, Phonzie! You know I'd break a date with any one of 'em any
day in the week for a sixty-cent table d'hote with you!"
"Hang around then, sweetness."
"Hang around! Gawd, if I hang around you any more than I have been doing
in the last five years, following you from one establishment to the
other, they'll have to kill me to put me out of my misery."
"You're all right, Gert. And when you haven't any of the greenback boys
around to fill in, you can always fall back on me."
"You're a nice old boy, Phonzie, and I like the kink in your hair,
but--but sometimes when I get blue, like to-night, I--I just wish I had
never clapped eyes on you."
"How she hates me."
"I wish to God I did."
"Cut the tragedy, Gert."
"That's the trouble; I been cutting it for the mock comedy all my life."
"You, the highest little flyer in the flock!"
"Yeh, because I've never found anybody who even cares enough about me to
clip my wings." Her laughter was short and with a blunt edge.
"Whew! Such a spill for you, Gert!"
"It's the spring gets on my nerves, I guess. Blow me to a table d'hôte
to-night, Phonzie. I got a red-ink thirst on me and I'm as blue as
indigo."
"Hang around, Gert, and if I'm not on duty I--"
"Honest, you're the greatest kid to squirm when you think a girl is
going to pin you down. You let me get about as serious as a musical
comedy with you and then you put up the barbed wire."
"Yes, I do not!"
"Fine chance I've got of ever pinning you down! You care about as much
for me as--as anybody else does, and that ain't saying much."
"Aw, Gert, you got the dumps--"
"Look at her over there. I can see by her profile she's hanging around
to buy you your dinner to-night. Whatta you bet she springs the
appointment-book yarn on you and you fall for it?"
A laugh flitted beneath Mr. Michelson's blond hedge of mustache. "Can I
help it that I got such hypnotizing, mesmerizing ways?"
She smiled beneath her rouge, and wanly. "No, darling," she said.
Across the room Madam Moores regarded them from beside the pile of
sheeny silks, her fingers plucking nervously at the fabrics.
"Hurry up over there, Phonzie. I told her the black lace was on the
way."
Miss Dobriner daubed at her red lips with a lacy fribble of
handkerchief, her voice sotto behind it.
"Don't let her pin you, Phonzie. Have a heart and take me to supper when
I'm blue as indigo."
He leaned to impale a pin upon his lapel. "She's so white to me, Gert,
how can I squirm if she asks me to go over the appointment-book with her
to-night?"
"Tell her your grandmother's dead."
He leaned for another pin. "Stick around down in Seligman's. If I dust
my hat with my handkerchief when I pass, I'm nailed for the evening. If
I can wriggle I'll blow you to Churchey's for supper."
"I--"
"'Sh-h-h-h."
He retreated behind the mauve-colored swinging-door. The two remaining
sibyls, hatted and coated to crane the neck of the passer-by, hurried
arm-in-arm out into the spring evening. An errand girl, who had dropped
her skirt and put up her hair so that the eye of the law might wink at
her stigma of youth, hung the shimmering gowns away for another day's
display. Gertie Dobriner patted her ringed fingers against her mouth to
press back a yawn and trailed across the room, adjusting her hat before
a full-length mirror. In the light from a single electric bulb her hair
showed three colors--yellow gold, green gold, and, toward the roots, the
dark gold of old bronze.
"You can go now, Gert."
"Yes, madam."
Miss Dobriner adjusted a spray of curls. Through the mirror she could
observe the mauve-colored swinging-door.
"Did--did Du Gass order that fish-tail model, madam?"
Madam Moores dallied with her appointment-book. Through the mirror she
could observe the mauve-colored swinging-door.
"Yes, in green."
"If I had her complexion I'd wear sandpaper to match it."
"We haven't all of us got the looks, Gert, that'll get us four-carat
stones to wear down to a twenty-dollar-a-week job."
Miss Dobriner's hand flew to her throat and the gem that gleamed there.
"I--I guess I can buy a stone on time for myself without--without any
insinuations."
"You can wear the stone, all right, Gert, but you can't get past the
insinuations."
"I--I ain't so stuck on this place, madam, that I got to stand for your
insinuations."
"No, it ain't the _place_ you're stuck on that keeps you here, Gert."
They regarded each other through eyes banked with the red fires of
anger, and beside the full-length mirror Miss Dobriner trembled as she
stood.
"You can think what you please, madam. I--I'm hired by Phonzie and I'm
here to wear models and not to steer your thinking."
Madam Moores sat so tense in her chair that her weight did not relax to
it. "You and me can't have no fusses, you know that, don't you? I give
Phonzie the run of my floor, and he's the one has to deal with--with
freshness."
"You--you started it, madam. I--can get along with anybody. I don't have
to stay in a place where I'm not wanted; it's just because Phonzie--"
"We won't fuss about it, Gertie. I'm the last one to fall out with my
help."
Silence.
"Did--did Laidlaw order that trotteur model in plaid, Gert?"
"No; she's coming back to-morrow."
"To-day's the day to land an order."
"She says that pongee we made her last spring never fit her slick enough
between the shoulders. I felt like telling her we don't guarantee to fit
tubs."
"You got to handle Laidlaw right, Gert. There'll be two trousseaux and
a ball in that family before June. The best way to lose a customer like
Laidlaw is to sell her what she ought to wear instead of what she wants
to wear."
"Handle her right! I wore rubber gloves. Did I quiver an eyelash when
she ordered that pink organdie, and didn't Phonzie nearly double up when
he took down the order? You want to see her measurements. I'll get the
book and--"
"No, no, Gert; you can go on. I got to stay and go over the appointments
with Phonzie."
A quick red flowed up and under the rouged surface of Miss Dobriner's
cheeks. "Oh--excuse me!"
"What!"
"I--All right, I'm going."
She readjusted her hat, a tiny winged chariot of pink straw and designed
after fashion's most epileptic caprice, coaxed her ringed fingers into
a pair of but slightly soiled white gloves, her eyes the while staring
past her slim reflection in the mirror and on to the mauve-colored
swinging-door.
"Good night, Gert."
Miss Dobriner bared her teeth to a smile and closed her lips again
before she spoke. "Good night--madam."
Then she went out, clicking the door behind her. Through the
mauve-colored swinging-door and scarcely a clock-tick later entered Mr.
Alphonse Michelson, spick, light-footed, slim.
"Charley's left with the black lace, madam."
It was as if Madam Moores suddenly threw off the husk of the day.
"Tired, Phonzie?"