Emma McChesney and Co Part 16

Emma lifted her head to reply to that.

"It isn't what they are that interests me. It's what they're going to be."

Buck paused in the doorway.

"Going to be! Anybody can see that. Underneath that full, fool, flaring over-drape, the real skirt is as tight as ever. I don't think the spring models will show an inch of real difference. I tell you, Emma, it's serious."

Emma, apparently absorbed in her work, did not reply to this. But a vague something about the back of her head told T. A. Buck that she was laughing at him. The knowledge only gave him new confidence in this resourceful, many-sided, lovable, level-headed partner-wife of his.

Two weeks went by--four--six--eight. Emma began to look a little thin.

Her bright color was there only when she was overtired or excited. The workrooms began to talk of new designs for spring, though it was scarcely mid-winter. The head designer came forward timidly with a skirt that measured a yard around the bottom. Emma looked at it, tried to keep her lower lip prisoner between her teeth, failed, and began to laugh helplessly, almost hysterically.

Amazement in the faces of Buck and Koritz, the designer, became consternation, then, in the designer, resentment.

Koritz, dark, undersized, with the eyes of an Oriental and the lean, sensitive fingers of one who creates, shivered a little, like a plant that is swept by an icy blast. Buck came over and laid one hand on his wife's shaking shoulder.

"Emma, you're overtired! This--this thing you've been slaving over has been too much for you."

With one hand, Emma reached up and patted the fingers that rested protectingly on her shoulder. With the other, she wiped her eyes, then, all contrition, grasped the slender brown hand of the offended Koritz.

"Bennie, please forgive me! I--I didn't mean to laugh. I wasn't laughing at your new skirt."

"You think it's too wide, maybe, huh?" Bennie Koritz said, and held it up doubtfully.

"Too wide!" For a moment Emma seemed threatened with another attack of that inexplicable laughter. She choked it back resolutely.

"No, Bennie; not too wide. I'll tell you to-morrow why I laughed.

Then, perhaps, you'll laugh with me."

Bennie, draping his despised skirt-model over one arm, had the courage to smile even now, though grimly.

"I laugh--sure," he said, showing his white teeth now. "But the laugh will be, I bet you, on me--like it was when you designed that knickerbocker before the trade knew such a thing could be."

Impulsively Emma grasped his hand and shook it, as though she found a certain needed encouragement in the loyalty of this sallow little Russian.

"Bennie, you're a true artist--because you're big enough to praise the work of a fellow craftsman when you recognize its value." And Koritz, the dull red showing under the olive of his cheeks, went back to his cutting-table happy.

Buck bent forward, eagerly.

"You're going to tell me now, Emma? It's finished?"

"To-night--at home. I want to be the first to try it on. I'll play model. A private exhibition, just for you. It's not only finished; it is patented."

"Patented! But why? What is it, anyway? A new fastener? I thought it was a skirt."

"Wait until you see it. You'll think I should have had it copyrighted as well, not to say pa.s.sed by the national board of censors."

"Do you mean to say that I'm to be the entire audience at the premiere of this new model?"

"You are to be audience, critic, orchestra, box-holder, patron, and 'Diamond Jim' Brady. Now run along into your own office--won't you, dear? I want to get out these letters." And she pressed the b.u.t.ton that summoned a stenographer.

T. A. Buck, resigned, admiring, and antic.i.p.atory, went.

Annie, the cook, was justified that evening in her bitter complaint.

Her excellent dinner received scant enough attention from these two.

They hurried through it like eager, bright-eyed school-children who have been promised a treat. Two scarlet spots glowed in Emma's cheeks.

Buck's eyes, through the haze of his after-dinner cigar, were luminous.

"Now?"

"No; not yet. I want you to smoke your cigar and digest your dinner and read your paper. I want you to twiddle your thumbs a little and look at your watch. First-night curtains are always late in rising, aren't they? Well!"

She turned on the full glare of the chandelier, turned it off, went about flicking on the soft-shaded wall lights and the lamps.

"Turn your chair so that your back will be toward the door."

He turned it obediently.

Emma vanished.

From the direction of her bedroom there presently came the sounds of dresser drawers hurriedly opened and shut with a bang, of a slipper dropped on the hard-wood floor, a tune hummed in an absent-minded absorption under the breath, an excited little laugh nervously stifled.

Buck, in his role of audience, began to clap impatiently and to stamp with his feet on the floor.

"No gallery!" Emma called in from the hall. "Remember the temperamental family on the floor below!" A silence--then: "I'm coming. Shut your eyes and prepare to be jarred by the Buck balloon-petticoat!"

There was a rustling of silks, a little rush to the center of the big room, a breathless pause, a sharp snap of finger and thumb. Buck opened his eyes.

He opened his eyes. Then he closed them and opened them again, quickly, as we do, sometimes, when we are unwilling to believe that which we see. What he beheld was this: A very pretty, very flushed, very bright-eyed woman, her blond hair dressed quaintly after the fashion of the early 'Sixties, her arms and shoulders bare, a pink-slip with shoulder-straps in lieu of a bodice, and--he pa.s.sed a bewildered hand over his eyes a skirt that billowed and flared and flounced and spread in a great, graceful circle--a skirt strangely light for all its fulness--a skirt like, and yet, somehow, unlike those garments seen in ancient copies of G.o.dey's Lady Book.

"That can't be--you don't mean--what--what IS it?" stammered Buck, dismayed.

Emma, her arms curved above her head like a ballet-dancer's, pirouetted, curtsied very low so that the skirt spread all about her on the floor, like the petals of a flower.

"Hoops, my dear!"

"Hoops!" echoed Buck, in weak protest. "Hoops, my DEAR!"

Emma stroked one silken fold with approving fingers.

"Our new leader for spring."

"But, Emma, you're joking!"

She stared, suddenly serious.

"You mean--you don't like it!"

"Like it! For a fancy-dress costume, yes; but as a petticoat for every-day wear, to be made up by us for our customers! But of course you're playing a trick on me." He laughed a little weakly and came toward her. "You can't catch me that way, old girl! It's darned becoming, Emma--I'll say that." He bent down, smiling. "I'll allow you to kiss me. And then try me with the real surprise, will you?"