The opera too was a great success. She always wept at Madame Butterfly and it pleased and warmed her that he also found it necessary to wipe his eyes. Again he dropped her formally, respectfully, and slightly inebriated at her door. But the following Saturday he became more direct. They were seated in his private office, which was beautifully furnished as such offices should be. His two clerks, he had explained, took care of all but the most important sales, for he found buying stimulating and selling unpleasant.
“You may have wondered, my dear, why I have been giving you such a rush.”
“Yes.” Her eyes crinkled. “Yes, I haff, Valter.”
“It is because you are very beautiful.”
“No. I know better than that.”
“You do not know it but it is nevertheless true. To be brutally frank, you have bad taste.”
“Oh, I know that too. Mrs. Webster, for whom I work, has told me often enough. She only hires me because I can draw. She cannot draw.”
“I did not realize how appalling your taste was until I showed you over the shop. You invariably picked the worst and did not even see the best.”
“I know. Isn’t it terrible?”
“It is terrible — so I will proceed to transform you. Your hair, your make-up, your clothes — bah! That evening gown you apologized for — you knew it was bad but you had no idea how bad. It was hideous.”
She laughed aloud. “But Valter, I could not afford, even if you tell me vot I buy.”
“I will buy these things.”
“No, Valter, dat I could not accept.”
“That you will accept because my intentions are honorable. If you become what I know I can make you — the most beautiful woman in New York — I will ask you to marry me.”
She was very much amused. “I neffer heard of anysing so romantic. Dat is vot you call a conditional proposal, no?”
“I am perfectly serious. We have an appointment with Isadora Elmenstein at 11.”
“And who is Isadora Elmenstein?”
“Your mirror will tell you after we have seen her.”
Six hours later — after the visit to Isadora Elmenstein — Walter Brand called the little French fitter at Bergdorf-Goodman’s aside.
“Here is my card.” With it was a large bill.
“Yes, Monsieur Bhrant, oowhat do you weesh?”
“You will help madame into these things I have picked out?”
“Oui, Monsieur.”
“You will see that she is completely nude and you will report to me any imperfections, bulges, wrinkles, moles, scars, pendulosity.”
“Imperfection. Bulges, wrinkles, grain de beauté, cicatrice, oui. Pendulosity? Ah, oui. Pendant.” She laughed. “Comprend bien, Monsieur.”
In fifteen minutes she was back. “Imperfection? Non. Parfait, magnifique! Monsieur ees een luck.”
“Thank you,” he replied without a smile. It was the second such report he had had that day. Mr. Brand never did things by halves: a thing worth doing was worth doing thoroughly, and it was well to check.
He and Magda stood before the tall pier glass.
“Regard yourself, my dear. Galatea is finished.”
“The hair is good. Black is much better. And the clothes are wonderful. I feel like a fallen woman. But it is still me.”
“Yes, it was always there — but hidden. I have merely brought it to light.”
In the mirror she caught his eyes and saw the desire in them and was, for a moment, frightened. But as they left the store and walked over to the Plaza for a cocktail, as they drank and had dinner, as they stood in the theater lobby during intermissions, she saw that it was not “still me.” Always eyes were on her — eyes of men and women alike. He must have transformed her more than she herself could see.
On Sunday it was the same. Everywhere they went people would stop talking, stop thinking of what they were thinking, to look at her. One would have to be a fool not to admit to one’s self that she had become, overnight, a sensation.
He could have satisfied his desire on Sunday. Her head was dizzy with champagne. She felt that he had given her so much, she could give him a little bit of her. But instead he asked her to marry him and that is not a little bit, it is giving all.
“Oh, Valter, I cannot belief you are serious. It vas as if I vas — I am so mixed up! I cannot be de mos’ beautiful voman in New York. Dot is crazy! An’ yet people look at me like I vas!”
She was honestly surprised.
“You are. I have made you so. But I do not want you to marry me now. I have not even kissed you. I do not want to hurry you. But I tried an experiment and it has succeeded. You are the most beautiful woman in New York and I don’t want you as my mistress. I want you as my wife. I want you to promise to marry me in six months.”
“Oh, Valter!” It was a reprieve. “If you still vant me den, I vill.”
He was a clever fellow, that Walter Brand, a perfectionist, knowing what he wanted and how to get it. The next day, Monday, he did not see her and on Tuesday, seven days after he had met her, he sailed for Europe to do his annual buying. If he had not gone away and she had seen him regularly for six months she never would have married him; Magda Lederer did not have taste but she did have character and insight. That hectic glamorous week with her transformation as its climax was the biggest thing in her life. When she reported for work on Monday, her employer, Mrs. Martha Webster, literally keeled over. She sat down heavily on a brocaded love seat and put her hands to her beautifully coiffured white hair.
“Holy—!” she said, not blasphemous but awed. “What have you done to yourself?”
“I’ve dyed my hair,” said Magda diffidently.
“What have you found? A new hormone? Dyed your hair! My sainted charge accounts! When you left this place on Friday night you were a colorless drudge. I’m sorry. You were always sweet but you had as much oomph as stale beer. Now you walk in here and you are the most gorgeous dish I ever saw in my whole life.”
“I’m engaged,” said Magda, herself rather awed at the reception.
“Listen, child.” Mrs. Webster was regaining her composure. “I have read more women’s magazine stories than you have. I know that becoming engaged is supposed to brighten the eye and tone up the blood. I have even been engaged myself and these snowy curls came straight out of a bottle — but please give me a blow-by-blow description! What happened to you?”
Magda felt like a schoolgirl caught smoking. “Last Tuesday I met Mr. Walter Brand. He picked me up.”
“The antique dealer up the street?”
Magda nodded.
“I know him. He’s good.”
“He said I did everything wrong. My powder and rouge, my hair, my clothes.”
“Yes, yes. I could have told you that. So he bought you these clothes... Well, the old saying is right: you can’t tell a book by its cover. Anyway, congratulations.”
That was the way it went. When she saw him off on the Liberté she got more attention than the ship itself and Walter felt a warm glow from being envied. For she had promised to marry him.
But she would not have done so if he had stayed — and Walter knew it. She liked him. He had changed her life — but that did not mean she loved him. She did not love him, but he was not there to remind her of the fact. So the other suitors — and there were many who, from the unlikeliest spots, came suddenly to flock around — were kept at bay. And when he returned and had picked out a suitable apartment on Sixty-Fourth Street, they were married quietly, with Mrs. Webster as her attendant, in the Chapel of the Church of the Heavenly Rest.