would be a continuous orgy of tryings on and consultations with Grover, M. Courso her avoué, the maid (if any, and usually she had just been discharged for reasons which were beyond Grover's comprehension), and the postman,—never with the concierge's wife, for the latter was ex-officio Madame's bitterest enemy. The concierge's wife said horrid things about Mouche.
At the end of the week the obliging delivery man from the Galeries Lafayette would call, and Madame, in a frenzy of indecision, would send back one third of the equipment and retain the balance on extended approval. Ten days later, when the delivery man again made his rounds she would keep and pay for one of the remaining two thirds and proceed, as soon as he had left, to regret her choice and mourn the rejected models.
And as she mourned she would trim, her only artistic principle being a wayward housewifely instinct to use up all her material. But as soon as the last gold rose and the last cluster of grapes had been made fast, their destiny was fulfilled, for Madame never wore a hat from January to December. Her hats were the concrete emblems of her perennial illusions. When she tried them on they settled down over bright visions of holiday excursions to Fontainebleau and Paris-Plage, visits to the Panthéon and Magic City and Longchamps, but for one reason or another "that never arranged itself," and of course her jiggings and joggings to market and to the cinema were negotiated
