"Perhaps it was that tight straight dress with the enormous trailing bow that seemed like a bustle, or maybe it was the lock of hair, but she seemed to me like a famous person coming from the past, as one imagines Bernhardt may have looked. And though the words she sang were not so beautiful, I thought of the Chansons de Bilitis and Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal."
His too-small mouth opened and he looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.
"I don't know as much French as Vida," Lucy said, "but she made me feel as though I'm just on the verge of learning about something exciting and like working hard until I know it. I feel excited all over."
"Another thing I liked was how she took the applause," Vida told Lucy. "She doesn't act humbly grateful, as Broadway performers do. The ones who say 'Thank you, thank you, thank you, you are the most wonderful audience in the world.' It's too obvious, they always say it."
"I guess we think every audience is the best because that's the one we've got right then. Kel Moyle told me Teddy Root can always cry when he thanks his audience because he has a slice of onion in his handkerchief. It makes a big hit," Lucy said practically.
Vermillion paused at the dressing-room door before knocking. Did he truly wish to begin this again, assuming she did? He knocked. No answer. He could feel his heart beating time against the stiff shirt. Smelling her perfume he marveled again that after all this time her Mitsuoko still clung to his suit as he had discovered when dressing. It had seemed quite strong at the table. Perhaps she had left immediately as was her custom. He knocked once more, listened, and heard the unmistakable murmur of Jacques's voice, followed by the turn of the knob.
"Paul!" The pianist embraced him, his frowning dark face lighting into welcome. "Look, Simone—it is Paul!"
Vermillion saw her over Jacques's shoulder standing, arms folded over her breasts as though warming herself in a garret, staring at him transfixed in indecision. He went to her, and unfolding her stiff arms, drew her to him. The familiar lines of her receptive body erased the image of the scratching angularities of their strident Brussels nightmare, as they swayed to Jacques's paean of joy.
"I said to her Simone, you will see, Paul will be there, he is but
