"Oh--we'll see as we get our bearings." She could not have put into words the plans she was forming--plans for educating and in every way developing him and herself.She was not sure at what she was aiming, but only of the direction.She had no idea how far she could go herself--or how far he would consent to go.The wise course was just to work along from day to day--keeping the direction.
"All right.I'll do as you say.You've got this game sized up better than I."Is there any other people that works as hard as do the Parisians? Other peoples work with their bodies; but the Parisians, all classes and masses too, press both mind and body into service.Other peoples, if they think at all, think how to avoid work; the Parisians think incessantly, always, how to provide themselves with more to do.Other peoples drink to stupefy themselves lest peradventure in a leisure moment they might be seized of a thought; Parisians drink to stimulate themselves, to try to think more rapidly, to attract ideas that might not enter and engage a sober and therefore somewhat sluggish brain.Other peoples meet a new idea as if it were a mortal foe; the Parisians as if it were a long-lost friend.Other peoples are agitated chiefly, each man or woman, about themselves; the Parisians are full of their work, their surroundings, bother little about themselves except as means to what they regard as the end and aim of life--to make the world each moment as different as possible from what it was the moment before, to transform the crass and sordid universe of things with the magic of ideas.Being intelligent, they prefer good to evil; but they have God's own horror of that which is neither good nor evil, and spew it out of their mouths.
At the moment of the arrival of Susan and Palmer the world that labors at amusing itself was pausing in Paris on its way from the pleasures of sea and mountains to the pleasures of the Riviera and Egypt.And as the weather held fine, day after day the streets, the cafes, the restaurants, offered the young adventurers an incessant dazzling panorama of all they had come abroad to seek.A week passed before Susan permitted herself to enter any of the shops where she intended to buy dresses, hats and the other and lesser paraphernalia of the woman of fashion.
"I mustn't go until I've seen," said she."I'd yield to the temptation to buy and would regret it."And Freddie, seeing her point, restrained his impatience for making radical changes in himself and in her.The fourth day of their stay at Paris he realized that he would buy, and would wish to buy, none of the things that had tempted him the first and second days.Secure in the obscurity of the crowd of strangers, he was losing his extreme nervousness about himself.That sort of emotion is most characteristic of Americans and gets them the reputation for profound snobbishness.In fact, it is not snobbishness at all.In no country on earth is ignorance in such universal disrepute as in America.The American, eager to learn, eager to be abreast of the foremost, is terrified into embarrassment and awe when he finds himself in surroundings where are things that he feels he ought to know about--while a stupid fellow, in such circumstances, is calmly content with himself, wholly unaware of his own deficiencies.
Susan let full two weeks pass before she, with much hesitation, gave her first order toward the outfit on which Palmer insisted upon her spending not less than five thousand dollars.Palmer had been going to the shops with her.She warned him it would make prices higher if she appeared with a prosperous looking man; but he wanted occupation and everything concerning her fascinated him now.His ignorance of the details of feminine dress was giving place rapidly to a knowledge which he thought profound--and it was profound, for a man.She would not permit him to go with her to order, however, or to fittings.All she would tell him in advance about this first dress was that it was for evening wear and that its color was green."But not a greeny green," said she.
"I understand.A green something like the tint in your skin at the nape of your neck.""Perhaps," admitted she."Yes."
"We'll go to the opera the evening it comes home.I'll have my new evening outfit from Charvet's by that time."It was about ten days after this conversation that she told him she had had a final fitting, had ordered the dress sent home.He was instantly all excitement and rushed away to engage a good box for the opera.With her assistance he had got evening clothes that sent through his whole being a glow of self-confidence--for he knew that in those clothes, he looked what he was striving to be.They were to dine at seven.He dressed early and went into their sitting-room.
He was afraid he would spoil his pleasure of complete surprise by catching a glimpse of the _grande toilette_ before it was finished.At a quarter past seven Susan put her head into the sitting-room--only her head.At sight of his anxious face, his tense manner, she burst out laughing.It seemed, and was, grotesque that one so imperturbable of surface should be so upset.
"Can you stand the strain another quarter of an hour?" said she.
"Don't hurry," he urged."Take all the time you want.Do the thing up right." He rose and came toward her with one hand behind him."You said the dress was green, didn't you?""Yes."
"Well--here's something you may be able to fit in somewhere."And he brought the concealed hand into view and held a jewel box toward her.
She reached a bare arm through the crack in the door and took it.The box, the arm, the head disappeared.Presently there was a low cry of delight that thrilled him.The face reappeared."Oh--Freddie!" she exclaimed, radiant."You must have spent a fortune on them.""No.Twelve thousand--that's all.It was a bargain.Go on dressing.We'll talk about it afterward." And he gently pushed her head back--getting a kiss in the palm of his hand--and drew the door to.
