“I don’t think that’s how you get consumption,” Margie said, but her dress was clinging unpleasantly to her and leaving a large wet spot on Sebastien’s carpet, so she followed him down the hall. He went into a room at the end and she almost followed him and then realized it was his bedroom and stopped, embarrassed, until her natural curiosity got the better of her and she peered around the door to see a table, a few sketchbooks and charcoal scattered on its surface, and a chair set up by a pair of wide French doors she guessed led to a balcony. At the other end of the room was an unmade bed, the sheets thrown back, the form of his body still clear upon them, so she could imagine him sleeping there, his hair tousled on the pillow, his eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks. She caught her breath and stepped back into the hallway, both excited and ashamed of her own imagination.
He rummaged around the chest of drawers and then emerged with a pile of clothes in his hands. “Here. Wear these.” He opened the door behind her to reveal another bedroom, a guest room, undisturbed and empty of personality. Taking the pile of clothes, she stepped inside and he closed the door behind her.
She changed into what he had given her, a shirt of soft cotton, a pair of loose pants. Sebastien was slender and Margie was broad, so they nearly fit her, and she felt somewhat charming and boyish, like a real flapper. The fabric was so fine and soft it made every inch of her skin feel alive, and she blushed to be naked against Sebastien’s clothes.
When she opened the door, she was startled to find Sebastien standing there as though he had been waiting. He had changed as well, was wearing a sweater and a dry pair of pants, his hair brushed back from his forehead. Self-consciously, Margie put her own hand to her hair, which was, she could feel, beginning to curl wildly as it dried. “Let me take your things,” Sebastien said, reaching for them, and Margie almost handed them over and then remembered her underthings and yanked the bundle back.
“I’ll hang them,” she said, and Sebastien simply shrugged.
“The toilet is just there.” He nodded to the door behind him. “I have turned on the radiator. If you want to hang your clothes, they will dry.”
She hung her clothes, and when she emerged, he had built a fire in the fireplace and moved the sofa toward the hearth. He was sitting in the center of it, leaning forward. When Margie padded into the room, he shifted to one side and patted the place next to him. “Come sit by the fire. I’ve made chocolat chaud.”
Margie sat and gratefully took the cup he handed her, full of steaming hot chocolate, so thick and sweet it was like drinking a melted chocolate bar. The sugar and the heat from the fire made her feel sleepy, and she drew her feet up beneath her and curled into the cushions and sighed happily. “Thank you for inviting me in. And for the clothes.”
“Of course.”
“So do your friends know you’re this rich?” Margie asked again, sipping at her chocolate.
Sebastien sighed exaggeratedly, and then looked over at her in the firelight and saw she was teasing him. “They do not. They know I can afford to pay the bill at cafés sometimes when they are short, but I let them believe it is because I sold a painting at the gallery. When some of them are struggling so much, it seems impolite to speak of it. And of course it would draw a line between us, if they knew. They might treat me differently. Money changes everything. Isn’t that what they say in America?”
“It is,” Margie said sadly. She thought of Mr. Chapman and his awkward proposal, about the hushed conversations between her mother and her aunt about her dowry versus Evelyn’s. “Well, you hardly need so large a dowry with Evelyn,” her mother had said to her aunt, and though Margie had known that was mostly meant to soothe her Aunt Edith, who acted richer than she actually was, it was nonetheless a slight to Margie, and it had made her feel even plainer and dowdier and more hopeless. She thought of how happy she was in Paris on only her tiny salary plus a little from her savings, how much happier than she had ever been at home, where there had been new dresses every season and invitations to the most important homes in Washington and Baltimore and New York, but she also thought of the way she felt now, safe inside an apartment with window glass solid enough to make the thunderous sound of the rain sound like nothing more than a gentle tapping, with a fireplace large enough to warm the whole room, with comfortable furniture and carpets thick as new grass, and she knew while it was exciting to think about throwing away material comforts in search of a romantic asceticism, money could be very nice indeed.