Lady Kirkbank within those thirty years had paid Seraphine many
thousands; but she had never once got herself out of the dear creature's
debt. All her payments were payments on account. A hundred pounds; or
fifty--or an occasional cheque for two hundred and fifty, when Sir
George had been lucky at Newmarket and Doncaster. But the rolling
nucleus of debt went rolling on, growing bigger every year until the
payments on account needed to be larger or more numerous than of old to
keep Seraphine in good humour.
Seraphine was a woman of genius and versatility and had more than one
art at her fingers' ends--those skinny and claw-shaped fingers, the
nails whereof were not always clean. She took charge of her customer's
figures, and made their corsets, and lectured them if they allowed
nature to get the upper hand.
'If Madame's waist gets one quarter of an inch thicker it must be that I
renounce to make her gowns,' she would tell a ponderous matron, with
cool insolence, and the matron would stand abashed before the little
sallow, hooked-nosed, keen eyed Jewess, like a child before a severe
mother.
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