Madame requires a gown. In a building high up above a celebrated
street in the heart of London, M. Flair bows her to a gold couch on
which are green velvet cushions.
M. Flair has descended with dignity and charm to middle age, and
every one seems to forgive him for smelling rather like an overworked
jasmine grove. This apartment with the gold and black striped
cushions, the dove-grey walls, the black carpet, the green jade
hangings, and its scent like that of Paris is not a shop: it is a
salon. If you pulled out a bunch of crackling fivers and offered in
an honest straightforward way to pay M. Flair for one of his gowns--I
mean "creations"--he would, I imagine, feel insulted. He would much
rather sue you in the usual way. He is an artist. Lady So-and-So
blazons his genius along the Côte d'Azur; Miss So-and-So does him
credit on the stage, so that, as he bends over Madame, cooing
slightly, the tips of his manicured fingers together, there is no
condescension in him. Oh, dear, no! He is a psychologist.
Madame requires a gown.
It must, I fear, be said that Madame has been requiring gowns for
well over forty years, and, lately, requiring them shorter in the
skirt, with an ever-increasing touch of springtime over them. So M.
Flair, after lightly discussing the season in the south of France and
dismissing Switzerland with a shrug, whispers a word to a sylph in
black and--more bowing--offers Madame a small brown Russian cigarette.
* * *
"Charming! delicious ... ah, exquisite!"
These words come lightly from Madame as the grey curtains part at the
end of the room, and there dawn, swaying slightly, hands on narrow
hips, several visions of beauty clothed, it seems, too perfectly from
their neat, sharp shoes to their tight little hats.
One mannequin is fair, another is dark, a third is petite, a fourth
is tall. Each one is the perfection of her type--too perfect. As
each sways up to Madame over the black carpet she gives Madame one
half-smiling look in the eyes, then turns, lingers, sways a little,
and slowly goes. Sometimes Madame puts out a hand and touches a
gown. The mannequin stands like a piece of machinery suddenly
stopped. All the time M. Flair remains with one plump hand on the
gold couch, explaining, expounding, and, at length, advising. Here
we have thin ice. Dangerous ice. M. Flair knows Madame's age and
the lines of her figure. Madame has forgotten the first and has
never really appreciated the second. This is where M. Flair earns
his money. Just as he is bringing her--oh, so cleverly--away from a
May-time gown to one nearer August, the curtains part, and into the
scented room glides a Golden Girl--sweet as April sun.
Ah, now we approach the comedy; now the plot thickens; now Madame
permits the white ash of her slim brown cigarette to fall unnoticed
on the black floor. That splendid, cunning fall of the cloth,
revealing that which it professes to cover; that fine swing of
rounded hips; those beautiful young arms, unmasked at the elbow with
no wicked little wizened witch's face time puts there. Yes; a lovely
gown! Madame looks at April and--sees herself!
M. Flair knows that the game is up. He realizes, with the instinct
of a lifetime's experience, that no matter what he can say Madame
will have nothing but the unsuitable magnificence worn by this most
marvellous of mannequins. The artist in him wars with the business
man. He feels that he should forbid it. Refuse to sell. Explain to
Madame that she will not look like the Golden Girl; that she is
deluding herself. Yet why?
Madame, with a woman's swift knowledge of unspoken things, says:
"So you think it's a bit too--too young?"
She appears frank, careless; but there is such a touch of hardiness
in her voice, velvet over steel. It is a challenge to M. Flair to
say "Yes," and what man would have the moral courage?
"My dear lady," he says with uplifted hands. "What a ridiculous
idea!"
Then, when she has gone, he says to me: "You see how it is--O mon
Dieu!"
* * *
"Yes, but the Golden Girl," I say. "How did anything so beautiful
happen in the world? The racehorse lines of her, the slimness, the
strength. Is she one of these exiled princesses? She must stand on
a pyramid of good breeding."
"Oh, no," replies M. Flair; "her father was, I believe, a coal-porter
somewhere in London. If only her accent were a little better she
might ... the stage ... success ... but--O _mon Dieu_, these women
who do not know themselves!"
So ends an ordinary little comedy of a London day.