Lifted Masks | Page 2

Paris, all right," Virginia repeated, a bit grimly. "But do you know"--this quite as to that little boy who might be buying the ribbon--"American women don't always care for all the things that look as if they came from Paris. Is your wife--does she care especially for red stockings?"
"Don't believe she ever had a pair in her life. That's why I thought it might please her."
Virginia looked down and away. There were times when dimples made things hard for one.
Then she said, with gentle gravity: "There are quite a number of women in America who don't care much for red stockings. It would seem too bad, wouldn't it, if after you got these clear home your wife should turn out to be one of those people? Now, I think these grey stockings are lovely. I'm sure any woman would love them. She could wear them with grey suede slippers and they would be so soft and pretty."
"Um--not very lively looking, are they? You see I want something to cheer her up. She--well she's not been very well lately and I thought something--oh something with a lot of dash in it, you know, would just fill the bill. But look here. We'll take both. Sure--that's the way out of it. If she don't like the red, she'll like the grey, and if she don't like the--You like the grey ones, don't you? Then here"--picking up two pairs of the handsomely embroidered grey stockings and handing them to the clerk--"One," holding up his thumb to denote one--"me,"--a vigorous pounding of the chest signifying me. "One"--holding up his forefinger and pointing to the girl--"mademoiselle."
"Oh no--no--no!" cried Virginia, her face instantly the colour of the condemned stockings. Then, standing straight: "Certainly not."
"No? Just as you say," he replied good humouredly. "Like to have you have 'em. Seems as if strangers in a strange land oughtn't to stand on ceremony."
The clerk was bending forward holding up the stockings alluringly. "_Pour mademoiselle, n'est-ce-pas_?"
"_Mais--non!_" pronounced Virginia, with emphasis.
There followed an untranslatable gesture. "How droll!" shoulder and outstretched hands were saying. "If the kind gentleman wishes to give mademoiselle the _joli bas_--!"
His face had puckered up again. Then suddenly it unpuckered. "Tell you what you might do," he solved it. "Just take 'em along and send them to your mother. Now your mother might be real glad to have 'em."
Virginia stared. And then an awful thing happened. What she was thinking about was the letter she could send with the stockings. "Mother dear," she would write, "as I stood at the counter buying myself some stockings to-day along came a nice man--a stranger to me, but very kind and jolly--and gave me--"
There it was that the awful thing happened. Her dimple was showing--and at thought of its showing she could not keep it from showing! And how could she explain why it was showing without its going on showing? And how--?
But at that moment her gaze fell upon the clerk, who had taken the dimple as signal to begin putting the stockings in a box. The Frenchwoman's eyebrows soon put that dimple in its proper place. "And so the petite Americaine was not too--oh, not _too_--" those French eyebrows were saying.
All in an instant Virginia was something quite different from a little girl with a dimple. "You are very kind," she was saying, and her mother herself could have done it no better, "but I am sure our little joke had gone quite far enough. I bid you good-morning". And with that she walked regally over to the glove counter, leaving red and grey and black hosiery to their own destinies.
"I loathe them when their eyebrows go up," she fumed. "Now his weren't going up--not even in his mind."
She could not keep from worrying about him. "They'll just 'do' him," she was sure. "And then laugh at him in the bargain. A man like that has no business to be let loose in a store all by himself."
And sure enough, a half hour later she came upon him up in the dress department. Three of them had gathered round to "do" him. They were making rapid headway, their smiling deference scantily concealing their amused contempt. The spectacle infuriated Virginia. "They just think they can work us!" she stormed. "They think we're easy. I suppose they think he's a fool. I just wish they could get him in a business deal! I just wish--!"
"I can assure you, sir," the English-speaking manager of the department was saying, "that this garment is a wonderful value. We are able to let you have it at so absurdly low a figure because--"
Virginia did not catch why it was they were able to let him have it at so absurdly low a figure, but she did see him wipe his brow and look helplessly