form and material, from the transparent blue silk _matinée_ to the dark
heavy cloak of velvet ornamented with fur. The place was in fact very like
the showrooms of a cosmopolitan dressmaker after a vast trying-on. Sundry
cosmopolitan dressmakers had contributed to the rich confusion. None had
hesitated for an instant to execute Audrey's commands. They had all been
waiting, apparently since the beginning of time, to serve her. All that
district of Paris had been thus waiting. The flat had been waiting, the
automobile had been waiting, the chauffeur had been waiting, and purveyors
of every sort. A word from her seemed to have released them from an
enchantment. For the most part they were strange people, these magical
attendants, never mentioning money, but rather deprecating the sound of it,
and content to supply nothing but the finest productions of their
unquestionable genius. Still, Audrey reckoned that she owed about
twenty-five thousand francs to Paris.

The third woman was the maid, Elise. The hotel had invented and delivered
Elise, and thereafter seemed easier in its mind. Elise was thirty years of
age and not repellent of aspect. On a black dress she wore the smallest
white muslin apron that either Audrey or Miss Ingate had ever seen. She
kept pins in her mouth, but in other respects showed few eccentricities
beyond an extreme excitability. When at eight o'clock Mademoiselle's new
gown, promised for seven, had not arrived, Elise begged permission to use
Madame's salts. When the bell rang at eight-thirty, and a lackey brought in
an oval-shaped box with a long loop to it of leathern strap, she only just
managed not to kiss the lackey. The rapid movement of Mademoiselle and
Elise with the contents of the box from the drawing-room into
Mademoiselle's bedroom was the last rushing and swishing that preceded a
considerable peace.

Madame was absolutely ready, in her bedroom. In the large mirror of the