She would like to rip the cursed thing from her shoulders and tear it into a million pieces! She felt hysteria sweeping over her. She knew that she was going to have one of her famous fits of temper in a minute.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Madame d'Avala screamed aloud, stamping her feet up and down as fast as they could go. "Oh! Oh! Oh! Damn! Damn! Damn!"
She did not swear in Italian, because she was not an Italian except by profession. Her name had been Maggie Davis, but that was a secret between herself and her press agent.
"Oh! Damn!" screamed Madame d'Avala again.
"Ain't it hell?" remarked an interested voice, and Madame d'Avala saw a small pale face staring at her through the door which she had left ajar.
"Come in!" she ordered, and a small thin boy entered, quite unabashed, looking at her with an air of complete understanding.
"Well, Freddy, run at once and find a maid for me, please. Mine hasn't come, and I'm frantic, simply frantic. Well, why don't you go?"
"Sure! I kin do it better'n any maid you'd get in this helluva school."
"Aw, I heard you sayin' damn! You're in the p'fession, huh? Me, too."
"Yeah--learnin' to be a gem'mum. Lemme there," said Freddy, stepping behind Madame d'Avala. "Say, you've got it all started wrong." He attacked the stubborn hooks with light, deft fingers.
"Why, you can really do it!" cried Madame d'Avala.
"Sure! This ain't nothin'." Freddy's fingers flew.
"Say, drapery's pie to me. I fastened up lots harder dresses than this."
"Sure! Florette had swell clo'es. This'n's swell, too. My! ain't it great to see a classy gown again!"
Madame d'Avala laughed and Freddy joined her.
"Say, you seen the teachers at this school?" he asked. "You seen 'em?"
"Nice ladies," said Freddy in an effort to be fair. "But no class--you know what I mean. Way they slick their hair back, an' no paint or powder. Gee, Florette wouldn't wear their clo'es to a dog fight!"
"Nor I," said Madame d'Avala; "I love dogs."
"I tole Miss Eva she ought to put peroxide in the rinsin' water for her hair like Florette useter, but it made her mad. I b'lieve in a woman fixin' herself up all she can, don't you?" asked Freddy earnestly.
"Indeed, I do! But tell me, who is Florette?"
So Freddy told her all about his mother, and about the good fortune that had come to her.