the more impressive. Her skin was of a milky whiteness, her eyes large and brown and placid, her hair of a rich brown beginning to fleck with grey. Exquisite, exuding elegance that made many of her customers of better birth feel at times awkward and boorish.
Only the nervous little jerks of her fingers revealed that her calm air was an acquired one, indicated the abundance of nervous energy beneath that calm which had enabled Madame Francine, who had been born Margaret O’Donnell, to reach the heights she had attained. But the Madame Francine who sat opposite Mimi had travelled a long way from the Irish immigrant girl who had looked with startled eyes upon the expanse of New York bay as she clutched feverishly the hand of her squat and unimaginative father. She must be fifty if she’s a day, Mimi reflected. No, that can’t be so. She’s been in business for over thirty years—she must be sixty. Anyway, the old girl’s certainly taken care of herself, Mimi decided, as she gave polite and reassuring answers to the questions which occasionally interrupted the even flow of Madame Francine’s narrative. …