Paris fashions rarely get a good word from men or a bad word from women. The satirists and the clergy and native dressmakers who do not import have delivered tirades   
in all languages against them for centuries. They are still giving delight and refreshment from the harems on the Bosporus to the cottages on the Pacific and the rest 
 
of the way around the world.
 
The doctors have not seemed to recognize their medicinal value. They recommend equally or even more expensive changes of occupation or of climate which work a gradual 
 
improvement at best in the condition of a failing woman.
 
But for instant tonic and restorative virtue there is nothing to match the external application of a fresh Paris gown. For mild attacks a Paris hat may work, and where 
 
only domestic wares are obtainable they sometimes help, if fresh. For desperate cases both hat and gown are indicated.
 
Mustard plasters, electric shocks, strychnia, and other remedies have nothing like the same potency. The effect is instantaneous, and the patient is not only brought 
 
back to life, but stimulated to exert herself to live up to the gown. Husbands or guardians should be excluded during the treatment, as the reaction of Paris gowns on 
 
male relatives is apt to cause prostration. There need be no fear, however, of overdosing women patients.
 
As a final test of mortality, the Paris gown has been strangely overlooked. Holding mirrors before the lips, lifting the hands to the light, and like methods sometimes 
 
fail of certainty. If, however, a Paris gown be held in front of the woman in question, and the words “Here is the very newest thing from Paris just smuggled in” be 
 
spoken in a loud voice, and no sign of an effort to sit up is made, she is dead, and no doubt of it.
 
Bret had decoyed Sheila to New York with an elaborate story of having to go on business and hating to go alone. When they arrived she was so weak that Bret wanted to 
 
send a red-cap for a wheeled chair to carry her from the train to the taxicab. Her pride refused, but her strength barely sufficed the distance.
 
Bret chose the Plaza for their hotel, since it required a ride up Fifth Avenue. His choice was justified by the interest Sheila displayed in the shop windows. She 
 
tried to see both sides of the street at once.
 
She was as excited as a child at Coney Island. She astounded Bret by gifts of observation that would have appalled an Indian scout.
 
After one fleeting glance at a window full of gowns she could describe each of them with a wealth of detail that dazzled him and a technical terminology that left him 
 
in perfect ignorance.
 
At the hotel she displayed unsuspected vigor. She needed little persuasion to spend the afternoon shopping. He was afraid that she might faint if she went alone, and 
 
he insisted that his own appointments were for the next day.
 
He followed her on a long scout through a tropical jungle of dressmakers’ shops more brilliant than an orchid forest. Sheila clapped her hands in ecstasy after 
 
ecstasy. She insisted on trying things on and did not waver when she had to stand for long periods while the fitters fluttered about her. She promenaded and preened 
 
like a bird-of-paradise at the mating season. She was again the responsive, jocund Sheila of their own seaside mating period.
 
She found one audacious gown and a more audacious hat that suited her and each other without alterations. And since Bret urged it, she let him buy them for her to wear 
 
that night at the theater. She made appointments for further fittings next day.
 
On the way to the hotel she tried to be sober long enough to reproach herself for her various expenditures, but Bret said:
 
“I’d mortgage the factory to the hilt for anything that would bring back that look to your face—and keep it there.”
 
At the hotel they discussed what play they should see. The ticket agent advised the newest success, “Twilight,” but Sheila knew that Floyd Eldon was featured in the 
 
cast and she did not want to cause Bret any discomfort. She voted for “Breakers Ahead” at the Odeon, though she knew that Dulcie Ormerod was in it. Dulcie was now 
 
established on Broadway, to the delight of the large rural-minded element that exists in every city.
 
Bret bought a box for the sake of the new gown. It took Sheila an age to get into it after dinner, but Bret told her it was time well spent. When they reached the 
 
theater the first act was well along, and in the otherwise deserted lobby Reben was talking to Starr Coleman concerning a learned interview he was writing for Dulcie.
 
Both stared at the sumptuous Delilah floating in at the side of Bret Winfield. They did not recognize either Bret or Sheila till Sheila was almost past them. Then they 
 
leaped to attention and called her by name.
 
All four exchanged greetings with cordiality. Time had blurred the old grudges. The admiration in the eyes of both Reben and Coleman reassured Sheila more than all the 
 
compliments they lavished.
 
Reben ended a speech of Oriental floweriness with a gracious implication: “You are coming in at the wrong door of the theater. This is the entrance for the sheep. The 
 
artists—Ah, if we had you back there now!”
 
Bret whitened and Sheila flushed. Then they moved on. Reben called after her, laughingly:
 
“I’ve got that contract in the safe yet.”
 
It was a random shot, but the arrow struck. When the Winfields had gone on Reben said to Coleman:
 
“She’s still beautiful—she is only now beautiful.”
 
Coleman, whose enthusiasms were exhausted on his typewriting machine, agreed, cautiously: “Ye-es, but she’s aged a good deal.”
 
Reben frowned. “So you could say of a rosebud that has bloomed. She was pretty then and clever and sweet, but only a young thing that didn’t know half as much as she 
 
thought she did. Now she has loved and suffered and she has had children and seen death maybe, and she has cried a lot in the night. Now she is a woman. She has the 
 
tragic mask, and I bet she could act—my God! I know she could act—if that fellow didn’t prevent.”
 
“Fellow” was not the expression he used. Reben abhorred Bret even more than Bret him.
 
Once more Sheila was in the Odeon, but as one of the laity. When she entered the dark auditorium her eyes rejoiced at the huge, dusty, gold arch of the proscenium 
 
framing the deep brilliant canvas where the figures moved and spoke. It was a finer sight to her than any sunset or seascape or any of the works of mere nature, for 
 
they just happened; these canvas rocks and cloth flowers were made to fit a story. She preferred the human to the divine, and the theatrical to the real.
 
The play was good, the company worthy of the Odeon traditions. Even Dulcie was not bad, for Reben had subtly cast her as herself without telling her so. She played the 
 
phases of her personality that everybody recognized but Dulcie. The play was a comedy written by a gentle satirist with a passion for making a portrait of his own 
 
times. The character Dulcie enacted was that of a pretty and well-meaning girl of a telephonic past m............