CHAPTER XLV
During the interminable process of hanging the skirt of that yellow dress for Donna Antonia's soirée Marise kept thinking of the Pantheon. The dressmaker's lodging was near there. If they could only be done with those draperies she would have time to step into the place which she loved best in Rome. She cast a look at herself in the cracked mirror which was all the inexpensive little dressmaker could afford. "I'm afraid it's higher on the right hip," she said, and settled with a sigh to endure more pinnings and unpinnings. "Strange, how important it is for the correct playing of Beethoven," she thought ironically, "that the drapery on one hip shall not be higher than on the other." She caught a glimpse of herself as she thought this, and frowned to see her lip curled in a cold, ugly line of distaste. Her thoughts were showing more and more on her face. She knew well enough what Mme. Vallery would say. She would say, "Don't pretend, dear child, that you don't know perfectly well that the kind of dress you wear has a great deal to do with everything that anybody cares about, and that the kind of people you must depend on to make your music profitable are the kind who care nothing about music and altogether about looks."
That was true, of course, but all the same it did make Marise sick to have people call a "soirée musicale" what really was a "sartorial evening." Of course it was understood that people were hypocritical about everything. She granted that they never called anything by its right name. But she did wish they would leave music alone! She cared about that!
"That's right now," she said aloud, looking intently from one hip to the other. "Perhaps a little more—no, it will do as it is."
She would have time for the Pantheon after all—ten minutes at least. Ten minutes for the Pantheon! She had been three-
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