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Page 96

There was a dispute over the gown, something about the draping.
Monia, flushed with irritation, came to the workroom door and
glanced over the girls. She singled out Harmony finally and
called her.

"Come and put on the American's gown," she ordered. "She
wishes--Heaven knows what she wishes!"

Harmony went unwillingly. Nothing she had heard of the Fraulein
Le Grande had prepossessed her. Her uneasiness was increased when
she found herself obliged to shed her gown and to stand for one
terrible moment before the little dressmaker's amused eyes.

"Thou art very lovely, very chic," said Monia. The dress added to
rather than relieved Harmony's discomfiture. She donned it in one
of the fitting-rooms, made by the simple expedient of curtaining
off a corner of the large reception room. The slashed skirt
embarrassed her; the low cut made her shrink. Monia was frankly
entranced. Above the gold tissue of the bodice rose Harmony's
exquisite shoulders. Her hair was gold; even her eyes looked
golden. The dressmaker, who worshiped beauty, gave a pull here, a
pat there. If only all women were so beautiful in the things she
made!

She had an eye for the theatrical also. She posed Harmony behind
the curtain, arranged lights, drew down the chiffon so that a bit
more of the girl's rounded bosom was revealed. Then she drew the
curtain aside and stood smiling.

Le Grande paid the picture the tribute of a second's silence.
Then:--

"Exquisite!" she said in English. Then in halting German: "Do not
change a line. It is perfect."

Harmony must walk in the gown, turn, sit. Once she caught a
glimpse of herself and was startled. She had been wearing black
for so long, and now this radiant golden creature was herself.
She was enchanted and abashed. The slash in the skirt troubled
her: her slender leg had a way of revealing itself.

The ordeal was over at last. The dancer was pleased. She ordered
another gown. Harmony, behind the curtain, slipped out of the
dress and into her own shabby frock. On the other side of the
curtain the dancer was talking. Her voice was loud, but rather
agreeable. She smoked a cigarette. Scraps of chatter came to
Harmony, and once a laugh.

"That is too pink--something more delicate."

"Here is a shade; hold it to your cheek."

"I am a bad color. I did not sleep last night."

"Still no news, Fraulein?"

"None. He has disappeared utterly. That isn't so bad, is it? I
could use more rouge."

"It is being much worn. It is strange, is it not, that a child
could be stolen from the hospital and leave no sign!"

The dancer laughed a mirthless laugh. Her voice changed, became
nasal, full of venom.

"Oh, they know well enough," she snapped. "Those nurses know, and
there's a pig of a red-bearded doctor--I'd like to poison him.
Separating mother and child! I'm going to find him, if only to
show them they are not so smart after all."

In her anger she had lapsed into English. Harmony, behind her
curtain, had clutched at her heart. Jimmy's mother!

CHAPTER XXIII

Jimmy was not so well, although Harmony's flight had had nothing
to do with the relapse. He had found Marie a slavishly devoted
substitute, and besides Peter had indicated that Harmony's
absence was purely temporary. But the breaking-up was inevitable.
All day long the child lay in the white bed, apathetic but
sleepless. In vain Marie made flower fairies for his pillow, in
vain the little mice, now quite tame, played hide-and-seek over
the bed, in vain Peter paused long enough in his frantic search
for Harmony to buy colored postcards and bring them to him.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Sat 27th Dec 2025, 22:26

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart