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Epinglard falls into a meditative pose, his elbow in one hand, his chin in the other, and looks long at the young girl, scrutinizing not only the line and modelling of the body, but the expression of the face, the eyes, the shade and nature of the hair, reading her temperament with the lucidity of a phrenologist aided by the divination of a plastic artist who has had great experience of feminine humanity.
This afternoon Epinglard is in a theorizing mood, and, after having sent for Bamboula, as he calls her familiarly, a dark-skinned model, he drapes her in a pale-yellow tulle dress, and proceeds to lament that so few Frenchwomen will wear yellow, owing to a silly popular prejudice. "Ah, madame la baronne," he continues, "you cannot conceive what lovely combinations of rose and yellow I have made.
And Epinglard salutes gravely, while an assistant, who has noted down the prophetic utterances of the master, conducts the subject to a room in the centre of which is an articulated model of a feminine torso, with movable breasts, flattened rag arms hanging at the sides, and a combination of straps and springs to adjust the taille or waist, a most sinister and grotesque object, all crumpled and shrivelled up and covered with shiny, glazed calico.
"And you, Mademoiselle Ernestine, come here, too," calling to another model; who is walking about gloomily with a mantle on her shoulders: "put on Madame A 's mantle." Then, changing back to his hypocritical tone, Epinglard continues his sing-song monologue to the Baronne de P , and tells her that Madame A is a "great English lady who has deserted her husband and is now living in Paris.
The examination lasts many minutes, and finally, as if under the inspiring influence of the god of taste, Epinglard, in broken phrases, composes the dress: "Toilette entirely of tulle ... corsage plaited diagonally ... around the décolletage four ruches ... the skirt relieved with drapery of white satin falling behind like a peplum ... on the shoulder the left shoulder a bouquet of myosotis or violets ... that is how I see mademoiselle dressed."
This afternoon I am scarcely in the humor for a creation of such importance." And, with a grave salute, Epinglard passes into a saloon where two ladies are waiting impatiently, particularly the younger of the two, who has come, under the wing of her fashionable relative, to be introduced to the grand couturier. "Bonjour, Monsieur Epinglard," begins the elder.
Epinglard talks slowly, precisely, and in a sing-song and hypocritical voice, while his fingers, laden with heavy rings, caress voluptuously some piece of surah or silk.
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