Maria stopped, her eyes haggard with fear and revulsion.
“Maybe,” she said, half to herself, “if someone does come in… I can promise him a reward… tell him who I am… he’ll take me back home…“
“I… don’t know, mam’selle… but even if he would… how could you get past her?” asked Marie, her voice wavering with anxiety.
Marcia shrugged her shoulders, once again mistress of herself.
“In a tight spot, it’s everyone for himself, Marie. I’ll find a way.”
“And-and if you do, will you help me too?”
Marcia’s lips curled with the old arrogance and she replied casually, “I’ll do what I can, of course. But I’m important. I have to think of myself first, my place in life, you understand. Of course I’ll help you, but I must get back to my parents.”
She did not see the sudden look of hatred which dawned in her maid’s limpid blue eyes! “There isn’t much time, mam’selle,” said Mane hi a gentle, placating tone.
“You’d better let me… freshen you up a bit.”
“Oh, very well. After all, if I want to captivate the knight in shining armor, I have to look my best, don’t I?” responded the vain beauty and she moved to the boudoir table and seated herself.
Her black hair was gathered in the back and held in a luxuriant cascade on her ivory neck by means of a flowered barette; she leaned forward to contemplate herself in the mirror and the amorous valley of her desirable breasts was widened by the gesture in the accentuated cut of her velvet gown.
Marie came forward and the mirror showed her demure and submissively appetizing loveliness in her dishabille.
She aided Marcia in deepening the pouting bow of her mouth with a flaming red, in applying; a subtle nuance of rouge to the debutante’s fearpallid cheeks, intensified the eye shadow, which this time was brown, to deepen the quality of Marcia’s liquid brown eyes and daintily penciled the arching, disdainful, fragile brows, artistically applying mascara to the long, quivering lashes which were this debutante’s most affectatiously use a charm to attract the attention of the male in her demi-vierge ruses of self glorification.
Then she applied an atomizer of jasmine to Marcia’s raven hair, her naked forearms and then, pausing, said, with lowered eyes and blushing face, “If… mam’sehle will permit… may I make a suggestion?”
“You seem to be running things your own way, Marie. Go ahead,” said Marcia indolently, turning her face so that she might see herself in arrogant profile in the oval mirror.
Could she have but seen the shadow that passed in Marie’s blue eyes… But the maid demurely murmured, “A shade of perfume at the armpits… and the neck, mam’selle, is most seductive… I have been told.”
“One would think you’d had a little experience in this sort of thing before,” said Marcia coldly, examining her scarlet nails with great show of absorption.
Behind her, Marie stiffened, her lips compressed and a faint suffusion of humiliation dawned on the carnation cheeks of the young girl.
But, silent, containing her true feelings, she applied the atomizer’s light, esthetic kisses on Marcia’s slender neck, at the nape and a deft touch of the spray scented the debutante’s shell-exquisite earlobes as well.
“That’s enough, Marie,” said Marcia sharply, her voice somewhat strident and betraying her secret dread of the ordeal to come, in which she must exert all her wiles to save her precious treasure of maidenhood. “
For she was virgin-cold, fruitless virgin, who has known her powers of sensual provocation and usurped them for the sole purpose of enticing the male to become her feckless servitor, not her ardent lover-that never!
To yield the essence of her freedom to the detestable and pawing embraces of a man-loath some, utterly! “As you say, mam’selle.”
“As you say-bah, you’ve no more spirit than a slave. And what I said to you this morning about how Russian nobility treat their domestics is true, every word of it. When we get back to New York, I’ll have you discharged, Marie. I don’t mind telling you now I’m about fed up with your fawning and your listless service.”
Marie was about to respond-and who knows what, under the lash of those arrogant words, she might not have replied-when suddenly, there came the sound of a key turning in the lock.
Marie’s hand flew to her bosom. She stood, trembling, her eyes dilated; Marcia rose from her chair, pale, breathing quickly.
The door slowly opened.
The gowned directress of the establishment entered the room and, to the consternation of Marcia, an elegantly attired man, in tuxedo, faultless in sartorial elegance by all decrees of New York’s Four Hundred, followed behind her.
But what cast greatest terror into the vain and supercilious Marcia’s heart was the fact that on his suave features the unknown man wore a black silk mask, hiding his identity.
Lil turned to an obsequious smile on her evil face and said, “I thought you might like to try one of our new girls this evening. This is their first night and since you’re my best customer, I wanted you to be the one to enjoy that newness. That girl in the black evening dress is a bit fancy in her ideas.
She’s a virgin, I’m pretty sure. I don’t know about the blond. Let me know which you selected and how she pleased you. And you, girls”-turning to regard the petrified Marcia and her quivering maid-”be nice to Mr. George- particularly nice.” So saying, she nodded amiably to the masked stranger, closed and locked the door behind her.
And now-the moment, the fearful moment, had come!
The man seemed in no haste. His eyes wandered casually around the room, pausing to note the pictures on the walls, then at last reposed on the two girls standing at the boudoir table.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said at last.
Marcia did not speak… – her throat was constricted by fear.
It was the adorable Marie who timidly ventured “Bon soir, monsieur.”
“Oh, French… C’est gentil, ma belle pigeonne, de m’acueillir si agreeablement,” and the stranger bowed politely to the pretty Marie, who blushed and lowered her eyes demurely.
At last, forcing herself to speak, Marcia advanced, summoning all her poise, her innate arrogance and hauteur of carriage, to command attention.
“If you please, Mr. George-I believe that is your name-” she began, “I am Marcia Thomaston, the New York debutante. You’ve heard of me, of course. I was abducted tonight-en route to ~he celebration at the Waldorf in my honor. They are keeping me a prisoner here. My father a… a rich man. He will pay you handsomely if you take me to him. I am sure you are a gentleman of honor; you surely won’t allow a helpless girl to be brutally forced into a life of shame?”
The masked stranger turned his regard and contemplated her. There was a long silence. Then he responded, with a smile, “An interesting, if not quite new, approach. Besides, I don’t like my women talkative. You, ma petite blonde, comment vous appellez-vous?”
“Marie, monsieur,” murmured the enchanting young girl, shy, her head drooping, her hands quivering at her bosom. Marcia’s,eyes flamed with contempt for this passive acceptance of the vilest shame that could befall a girl. She would have Marie discharged without a reference, once she was back in New York.
And, conscious of the fact that the stranger was neglecting her, who was so much lovelier than Marie could ever be, she coughed lightly and, languidly putting her right gloved hand to the side of her raven head-a trick which had never before failed to win admiring gazes from male onlookers, said, “Pardon me, but you have not answered me, Mr. George. I should like to know whether you intend to take me back to New York.”
He raised his head, gazed at her steadily and through the mask she saw cold, appraising eyes and shuddered, despite herself, at the intent and impassive hint of those male orbs.
Then he remarked, “Certainly not till I have enjoyed myself Marie, come over here to the divan with me. I want to get better acquainted with you, ma toute belle et charmante poupde!”
Marie quivered and, her eyes still downcast, moved with delicious undulating step to the divan, where she seated herself, her hands folded in her lap. The stranger approached her and, sitting beside her, encircled her waist with his left arm, his right hand imprisoning hers in a gentle caress.
Marcia’s eyes widened with indignation at this disdain for her svelte and dazzlingly enhanced charms, for the total lack of concern which this man displayed about her prestige and importance in the social scheme of the metropolis of which she was certainly one of the chief luminaries.
She tapped her pump-shod foot in vexation.
“Kindly do me the honor of listening to me, she exclaimed, her face revealing a haughty and angered expression.
“Do you know this irritable lady, Marie?” asked the stranger.
Mane flushed demurely and from beneath golden lashes she regarded him with an adorable poignance, murmuring, “Oui, monsieur, I. – I am her maid.”