"Don't you think we'd better push on to Paris?""I can't go before Saturday," replied she."I've got several fittings yet.""It's pretty dull here for me--with you spending so much time in the shops.I suppose the women's shops are good"--hesitatingly--"but I've heard those in Paris are better.""The shops here are rotten.Italian women have no taste in dress.And the Paris shops are the best in the world.""Then let's clear out," cried he."I'm bored to death.But I didn't like to say anything, you seemed so busy.""I am busy.And--can you stand it three days more?""But you'll only have to throw away the stuff you buy here.
Why buy so much?"
"I'm not buying much.Two ready-to-wear Paris dresses--models they call them--and two hats."Palmer looked alarmed."Why, at that rate," protested he, "it'll take you all winter to get together your winter clothes, and no time left to wear 'em.""You don't understand," said she."If you want to be treated right in a shop--be shown the best things--have your orders attended to, you've got to come looking as if you knew what the best is.I'm getting ready to make a good first impression on the dressmakers and milliners in Paris.""Oh, you'll have the money, and that'll make 'em step round.""Don't you believe it," replied she."All the money in the world won't get you _fashionable_ clothes.at the most fashionable place.It'll only get you _costly_ clothes.""Maybe that's so for women's things.It isn't for men's.""I'm not sure of that.When we get to Paris, we'll see.But certainly it's true for women.If I went to the places in the rue de la Paix dressed as I am now, it'd take several years to convince them that I knew what I wanted and wouldn't be satisfied with anything but the latest and best.So I'm having these miserable dressmakers fit those dresses on me until they're absolutely perfect.It's wearing me out, but I'll be glad I did it."Palmer had profound respect for her as a woman who knew what she was about.So he settled himself patiently and passed the time investigating the famous Neapolitan political machine with the aid of an interpreter guide whom he hired by the day.
He was enthusiastic over the dresses and the hats when Susan at last had them at the hotel and showed herself to him in them.They certainly did work an amazing change in her.They were the first real Paris models she had ever worn.
"Maybe it's because I never thought much about women's clothes before," said Freddie, "but those things seem to be the best ever.How they do show up your complexion and your figure!
And I hadn't any idea your hair was as grand as all that.I'm a little afraid of you.We've got to get acquainted all over again.These clothes of mine look pretty poor, don't they?
Yet I paid all kinds of money for 'em at the best place in Fifth Avenue."He examined her from all points of view, going round and round her, getting her to walk up and down to give him the full effect of her slender yet voluptuous figure in that beautifully fitted coat and skirt.He felt that his dreams were beginning to come true.
"We'll do the trick!" cried he."Don't you think about money when you're buying clothes.It's a joy to give up for clothes for you.You make 'em look like something.""Wait till I've shopped a few weeks in Paris," said Susan.
"Let's start tonight," cried he."I'll telegraph to the Ritz for rooms."When she began to dress in her old clothes for the journey, he protested."Throw all these things away," he urged."Wear one of the new dresses and hats.""But they're not exactly suitable for traveling.""People'll think you lost your baggage.I don't want ever to see you again looking any way except as you ought to look.""No, I must take care of those clothes," said she firmly.
"It'll be weeks before I can get anything in Paris, and I must keep up a good front."He continued to argue with her until it occurred to him that as his own clothes were not what they should be, he and she would look much better matched if she dressed as she wished.
He had not been so much in jest as he thought when he said to her that they would have to get acquainted all over again.
Those new clothes of hers brought out startlingly--so clearly that even his vanity was made uneasy--the subtle yet profound difference of class between them.He had always felt this difference, and in the old days it had given him many a savage impulse to degrade her, to put her beneath him as a punishment for his feeling that she was above him.Now he had his ambition too close at heart to wish to rob her of her chief distinction; he was disturbed about it, though, and looked forward to Paris with uneasiness.
"You must help me get my things," said he.
"I'd be glad to," said she."And you must be frank with me, and tell me where I fall short of the best of the women we see."He laughed.The idea that he could help her seemed fantastic.
He could not understand it--how this girl who had been brought up in a jay town away out West, who had never had what might be called a real chance to get in the know in New York, could so quickly pass him who had been born and bred in New York, had spent the last ten years in cultivating style and all the other luxurious tastes.He did not like to linger on this puzzle; the more he worked at it, the farther away from him Susan seemed to get.Yet the puzzle would not let him drop it.
They came in at the Gare de Lyon in the middle of a beautiful October afternoon.Usually, from late September or earlier until May or later, Paris has about the vilest climate that curses a civilized city.It is one of the bitterest ironies of fate that a people so passionately fond of the sun, of the outdoors, should be doomed for two-thirds of the year to live under leaden, icily leaking skies with rarely a ray of real sunshine.And nothing so well illustrates the exuberant vitality, the dauntless spirit of the French people, as the way they have built in preparation for the enjoyment of every bit of the light and warmth of any chance ray of sunshine.
