She entered. The shop-girls whispered to the customers on whom they were waiting. The customers turned quickly and stared at Grace Goodchild.
"She often comes here!" she heard the pretty little thing in charge of seventy-two glove-boxes say proudly to a client.
The girl who waited on Grace was a stranger. Nevertheless, when Grace told her "I'll take these!" the girl said, "Very well, Miss Goodchild."
"What d'ye t'ink I am?" said the girl, indignantly. "Say, it was great, Miss Goodchild!"
The worship in the girl's eyes kept the language from being offensive.
"I hope you'll be very happy, Miss Goodchild," said the girl, and blushed. "Oh, I didn't mean to be--I--I couldn't help wishing it, Miss Goodchild!"
"I'm sure I'm very grateful for your good wishes," Grace told her, graciously.
The child's--age twenty-four--eyes filled with tears. As Grace walked away, Mayme's lips moved raptly. She was memorizing dem woids.
On her way out Grace went through the same craning of necks, the same vivid curiosity, the same half-audible murmurs, the same spitefulness in the eyes of the women who, though rich, were not famous. Everybody is so disgustingly rich nowadays that society had begun to applaud such remarks as, "I've had to give up one of my motors," or, "Jim says he won't put the _Mermaid_ in commission this year; simply can't afford it."
At Raquin's wonderful exhibition of models Grace saw exactly what she wished to see. It would be worthy of her and of her throat. One who is photographed many times a week has to have gowns; not to have them is almost immoral. Grace was so concerned with doing her duty toward the public that she forgot that she had come to see the third one, next to Mrs. Vandergilt's black. She was nearly half-way home before she remembered what her mother had asked her to do.
Grace went back to the Fitz-Marlton. Dress was a public service. Mrs. Goodchild's clothes must tell the public whose mother she was.
She told the chauffeur "Home," and began to think.
Pleasure could be made a duty. Blessed indeed is she in whose mind, as in a vast cathedral, pleasure and duty solemnly contract nuptials.
This beautiful figure of speech in turn made her think of marriage. If she married Reggie or Mr. Watson or Percival or one of the others, what would her married life be? What?