In its catholicity it was highly correct as a resort; not many other restaurants in the centre could have successfully fought against the rival attractions of the Bois and the dim groves of the Champs Elysees on a night in August.
The complicated richness of the dresses, the yards and yards of fine stitchery, the endless ruching, the hints, more or less incautious, of nether treasures of embroidered linen; and, leaping over all this to the eye, the vivid colourings of silks and muslins, veils, plumes and flowers, piled as it were pell-mell in heaps on the universal green cushions to the furthest vista of the restaurant, and all multiplied in gilt mirrors--the spectacle intoxicated Sophia.
Her eyes gleamed.
She drank the soup with eagerness, and tasted the wine, though no desire on her part to like wine could make her like it; and then, seeing pineapples on a large table covered with fruits, she told Gerald that she should like some pineapple, and Gerald ordered one.
She gathered her self-esteem and her wits together, and began to give Gerald her views on the costumes.
She could do so with impunity, because her own was indubitably beyond criticism.
Some she wholly condemned, and there was not one which earned her unreserved approval.
All the absurd fastidiousness of her schoolgirlish provinciality emerged in that eager, affected torrent of remarks.
However, she was clever enough to read, after a time, in Gerald's tone and features, that she was making a tedious fool of herself.
And she adroitly shifted her criticism from the taste to the WORK--she put a strong accent on the word-- and pronounced that to be miraculous beyond description.
She reckoned that she knew what dressmaking and millinery were, and her little fund of expert knowledge caused her to picture a whole necessary cityful of girls stitching, stitching, and stitching day and night.
She had wondered, during the few odd days that they had spent in Paris, between visits to Chantilly and other places, at the massed luxury of the shops; she had wondered, starting with St. Luke's Square as a standard, how they could all thrive.
But now in her first real glimpse of the banal and licentious profusion of one among a hundred restaurants, she wondered that the shops were so few.
She thought how splendid was all this expensiveness for trade.
Indeed, the notions chasing each other within that lovely and foolish head were a surprising medley.
"Well, what do you think of Sylvain's?"
Gerald asked, impatient to be assured that his Sylvain's had duly overwhelmed her.
"Oh, Gerald!" she murmured, indicating that speech was inadequate. And she just furtively touched his hand with hers.
The ennui due to her critical disquisition on the shortcomings of Parisian costume cleared away from Gerald's face.
"What do you suppose those people there are talking about?" he said with a jerk of the head towards a chattering group of three gorgeous lorettes and two middle-aged men at the next table but one.
"What are they talking about?"
"They're talking about the execution of the murderer Rivain that takes place at Auxerre the day after to-morrow.
They're arranging to make up a party and go and see it."
"Oh, what a horrid idea!" said Sophia.
"Guillotine, you know!" said Gerald.
"But can people see it?"
"Yes, of course."
"Well, I think it's horrible."
"Yes, that's why people like to go and see it.
Besides, the man isn't an ordinary sort of criminal at all.
He's very young and good-looking, and well connected.
And he killed the celebrated Claudine. ..."
"Claudine?"
"Claudine Jacquinot.
Of course you wouldn't know.
She was a tremendous--er--wrong 'un here in the forties.
Made a lot of money, and retired to her native town."
Sophia, in spite of her efforts to maintain the role of a woman who has nothing to learn, blushed.
"Then she was older than he is."
"Thirty-five years older, if a day."
"What did he kill her for?"
"She wouldn't give him enough money.
She was his mistress--or rather one of 'em.
He wanted money for a young lady friend, you see.
He killed her and took all the jewels she was wearing.
Whenever he went to see her she always wore all her best jewels-- and you may bet a woman like that had a few.
It seems she had been afraid for a long time that he meant to do for her."
"Then why did she see him?
And why did she wear her jewels?"
"Because she liked being afraid, goose!