’You speak English very well, Mr. Saintou.  Have you been long in the country?  Well, wash the hair then, and be done.  Don’t put the soap in my eyes.’

Saintou was in ecstasies.  He touched the hair reverently as one would touch the garments of a saint.  He laid aside his ordinary brushes and sponges, and going into the shop he brought thence what was best and newest.  Do not laugh at him.  Have we not all at some time in our lives met with what seemed the embodiment of our ideal; have we not set aside for the time our petty economies and reserves, and brought forth whatever we had that was best, of thought, or smiles, or vesture?

‘Ah, mademoiselle,’ he said, ’to take care of such hair for ever—­that would be heaven.  I am a Frenchman; I have a soul; I can feel.’

‘Should you be afraid to die a sudden death, Mr. Saintou?’ said the quick voice from the depths of a shower of water.

’Ciel!  We do not speak of such things, mademoiselle.  There will come a time, I know, when my hair will turn grey; then for the sake of my profession I shall be obliged to dye it.  There will come a time after that when I shall die; but we do not even think of these things, it is better not.’

‘But should you be afraid to die now?’ persisted the girl.

‘Very much afraid,’ said the hairdresser candidly.

’Then don’t feel, Mr. Saintou.  I never feel.  I make it the business of my life not to feel.  They tell me there is something wrong at my heart, and that if I ever feel either glad or sorry I shall go off, pop, like a crow from a tree when it is shot, like a spark that falls into water.’

The hairdresser meditated upon this for some time.  He did not believe her.  He had drawn the bright hair back now from the water, and was fondling it with his whitest and softest towels.

‘Who was it that said to mademoiselle that her heart was bad?’

’Good gracious, Mr. Saintou, my heart is not bad.  I know my catechism and go to church, and cook my father’s dinner every day, and a very good dinner it is too.  What put it into your head that I had a bad heart?’

’Pardon! mademoiselle; I mistake.  Who told mademoiselle that she was sick at heart?’

’Good gracious heavens!  I am not sick at heart.  To be sure my mother is dead, and my sister is ill, and my father is as cross as two sticks, but for all that I am not heart-sick.  I like this world very well, and when I feel sad I put more onions into the soup.’

Saintou went on with his work for some time in silence, then he tried again.  ’You say I speak good English, and I flatter myself I have the accent very well, but what avails if I cannot make you understand?  Was it a good doctor who said mademoiselle’s heart was affected; touched, I might say?’

There was a shout of laughter from under the shower of gold.

’My heart touched!  One would think I was in love.  No, my heart is not touched yet; least of all by you, Mr. Saintou.