Paris: The Novel

wonder if you would do me the honor of accompanying me one evening.”
    “That sounds delightful,” Marie said.
    “As it happens, I have seats this coming Saturday for the ballet. I told my son that he is to accompany me for his education. I don’t imagine you would be free at such short notice, but he would be eternally grateful if you would take his place.”
    She thought for a moment, and smiled.
    “The appointment I had can easily be changed.”
    “Then I shall collect you at your house.”
    Marc now joined them, and their conversation turned to the war. Marc gave de Cygne an amusing account of his efforts to build the fake model of Paris to deceive the German bombers.
    “Construction was already well under way, you know, when the armistice came. Had the war lasted into 1919, I dare say we should have had a dummy Eiffel Tower in the sky.”
    Roland was fascinated.
    “We were quite unaware of all this at the front,” he remarked.
    “It was a huge secret. Of course, it would only have taken one German plane flying over the place in daytime to see the two towers. The whole scheme was probably insane.”
    “Talking of secrets,” Marie remarked, “there was a rumor in London that some of the French army had mutinied, but that it had all been hushed up. Did you ever see or hear anything of that, Monsieur de Cygne?”
    Roland did not hesitate. Amazingly, the truth about the mutiny had never reached the press, or the history books. Those involved preferred to forget it, and the army was determined to help them.
    “I did know about that business, as it happens,” he said calmly. “One prefers not to speak of it—even a hint of mutiny is embarrassing—but it was very limited, you know. A handful of incidents in a couple of divisions. The whole thing lasted only a day or two. Most of the army never even knew about it.”
    “That’s what I heard,” said Marc. “Now I’ll tell you,” he went on cheerfully, “where there will never be a mutiny. And that is in the Joséphine department store. Thanks to my sister. She rules the entire staff with a rod of iron, yet they’re all devoted to her.”
    Roland looked slightly confused. Marc saw it.
    “Marie didn’t tell you that she runs Joséphine?”
    Roland shook his head.
    “She’s the big boss,” Marc continued with a laugh. “I often think she’s got the best business head in the family.”
    Roland looked at Marie with astonishment.
    “I had no idea you were so terrifying, madame,” he said with a smile, but she could tell that he was shocked as well as surprised.
    “Does this mean, monsieur, that the invitation to the opera is canceled?”
    “Not at all. Of course not.”
    No, that would be rude, she thought, but I bet you wish you hadn’t made it.
    She was glad that at that moment Claire came to join them. She was always proud of her daughter, but Claire was looking particularly elegant today, and she saw that de Cygne noticed it.
    “I’ve just had an idea for the store,” Claire announced. She hesitated, and glanced at Roland de Cygne uncertainly. Marc laughed.
    “Monsieur de Cygne knows how to keep a secret. Continue.”
    “Someone’s just been telling me about a book called
The Phantom of the Opera
. And I suddenly thought, couldn’t we make it a theme for a set of window displays one day? You could do all kinds of things with a theme like that.”
    “I don’t know this book,” said Marie. “Do you?” she asked Roland.
    “I have heard of it, but never read it,” he confessed.
    “I think that you are right about the possibilities, but wrong about the windows,” said Marc. “The story’s based on a very famous book called
Trilby
, where a girl is turned into an opera star by hypnosis. The hypnotist is named Svengali. That was a huge success in its day. The Phantom story features a monster who lives under the opera house, where the secret lake is. It was a serial originally, then a book. But it didn’t sell many copies. So I don’t think it’s well enough known, at present, to be a store feature.”
    “That’s a pity,” said Claire. She turned to de Cygne. “You see, monsieur, all my life, nothing but rejection.”
    “I cannot imagine anyone rejecting you, mademoiselle,” he responded gallantly.
    “Isn’t he nice?” Claire said to her mother, who laughed.
    Marc took de Cygne away now. “I’ve got a charming old historian, who’s writing about the ancient families of the Loire. He’d very muchlike to meet