Ellen, the maid, passing the door, saw and entered to add her ecstatic exclamations to the excitement.Down she ran to bring Mrs.Tucker, who no sooner beheld the glory displayed upon the humble bed than she too was in a turmoil.Susan dressed with the aid of three maids as interested and eager as ever robed a queen for coronation.Ellen brought hot water and a larger bowl.Mrs.Tucker wished to lend a highly scented toilet soap she used when she put on gala attire; but Susan insisted upon her own plain soap.They all helped her bathe; they helped her select the best underclothes from her small store.Susan would put on her own stockings; but Ellen got one foot into one of the slippers and Mrs.Tucker looked after the other foot.
"Ain't they lovely?" said Ellen to Mrs.Tucker, as they knelt together at their task."I never see such feet.Not a lump on 'em, but like feet in a picture.""It takes a mighty good leg to look good in a white stocking,"observed Mary."But yours is so nice and long and slim that they'd stand most anything."Mrs.Tucker and Ellen stood by with no interference save suggestion and comment, while Mary, who at one time worked for a hairdresser, did Susan's thick dark hair.Susan would permit no elaborations, much to Miss Hinkle's regret.But the three agreed that she was right when the simple sweep of the vital blue-black hair was finished in a loose and graceful knot at the back, and Susan's small, healthily pallid face looked its loveliest, with the violet-gray eyes soft and sweet and serious.Mrs.Tucker brought the hat from the bed, and Susan put it on--a large black straw of a most becoming shape with two pure white plumes curling round the crown and a third, not so long, rising gracefully from the big buckle where the three plumes met.And now came the putting on of the dress.With as much care as if they were handling a rare and fragile vase, Mary and Mrs.Tucker held the dress for Susan to step into it.
Ellen kept her petticoat in place while the other two escorted the dress up Susan's form.
Then the three worked together at hooking and smoothing.Susan washed her hands again, refused to let Mrs.Tucker run and bring powder, produced from a drawer some prepared chalk and with it safeguarded her nose against shine; she tucked the powder rag into her stocking.Last of all the gloves went on and a small handkerchief was thrust into the palm of the left glove.
"How do I look?" asked Susan."Lovely"--"Fine"--"Just grand,"exclaimed the three maids.
"I feel awfully dressed up," said she."And it's so hot!""You must go right downstairs where it's cool and you won't get wilted," cried Mrs.Tucker."Hold your skirts close on the way.The steps and walls ain't none too clean."In the bathroom downstairs there was a long mirror built into the wall, a relic of the old house's long departed youth of grandeur.As the tenant--Mr.Jessop--was out, Mrs.Tucker led the way into it.There Susan had the first satisfactory look at herself.She knew she was a pretty woman; she would have been weak-minded had she not known it.But she was amazed at herself.A touch here and there, a sinuous shifting of the body within the garments, and the suggestion of "dressed up"vanished before the reflected eyes of her agitated assistants, who did not know what had happened but only saw the results.
She hardly knew the tall beautiful woman of fashion gazing at her from the mirror.Could it be that this was her hair?--these eyes hers--and the mouth and nose and the skin?
Was this long slender figure her very own? What an astounding difference clothes did make! Never before had Susan worn anything nearly so fine."This is the way I ought to look all the time," thought she."And this is the way I _will_ look!"Only better--much better.Already her true eye was seeing the defects, the chances for improvement--how the hat could be re-bent and re-trimmed to adapt it to her features, how the dress could be altered to make it more tasteful, more effective in subtly attracting attention to her figure.
"How much do you suppose the dress cost, Miss Hinkle?" asked Ellen--the question Mrs.Tucker had been dying to put but had refrained from putting lest it should sound unrefined.
"It costs ninety wholesale," said Miss Hinkle."That'd mean a hundred and twenty-five--a hundred and fifty, maybe if you was to try to buy it in a department store.And the hat--well, Lichtenstein'd ask fifty or sixty for it and never turn a hair.""Gosh--ee?" exclaimed Ellen."Did you ever hear the like?""I'm not surprised," said Mrs.Tucker, who in fact was flabbergasted."Well--it's worth the money to them that can afford to buy it.The good Lord put everything on earth to be used, I reckon.And Miss Sackville is the build for things like that.Now it'd be foolish on me, with a stomach and sitter that won't let no skirt hang fit to look at."The bell rang.The excitement died from Susan's face, leaving it pale and cold.A wave of nausea swept through her.Ellen peeped out, Mrs.Tucker and Miss Hinkle listening with anxious faces."It's him!" whispered Ellen," and there's a taxi, too."It was decided that Ellen should go to the door, that as she opened it Susan should come carelessly from the back room and advance along the hall.And this program was carried out with the result that as Gideon said, "Is Miss Sackville here?" Miss Sackville appeared before his widening, wondering, admiring eyes.He was dressed in the extreme of fashion and costliness in good taste; while it would have been impossible for him to look distinguished, he did look what he was--a prosperous business man with prospects.He came perfumed and rustling.
But he felt completely outclassed--until he reminded himself that for all her brave show of fashionable lady she was only a model while he was a fifteen-thousand-a-year man on the way to a partnership.
"Don't you think we might dine on the veranda at Sherry's?"suggested he."It'd be cool there."
