Very deliberately she divested her glossy chestnut hair of its discreet cap, loosened the swelling waves a trifle more on either side of the firm rose-tinted ivory of her face. “If a dash of powder was for poor girls like me, I wouldn’t be too bad-looking. I’d say that for myself,” she thought, and firmly set the hat of the Marquise at the right angle over her radiant brow. Well, it was a complete success. Like every true artist she was doubly critical of herself, but Pamela had to admit that she could find no flaw in her own taste and that the wide-brimmed curving Italian straw with its bold sweep of purple ribbon, and its hanging bunches of cowslips was a remarkably fine set-off for the glory of her amber hair and the audacious brilliance of her complexion. Without a tinge of envy or discontent she surveyed herself thoughtfully. “Upon my word, Pamela Pounce, my girl!”--she was fond of addressing herself mentally; as it were her strong reasonable mind to her agreeable body. “You would have held your own with the best of them if it had been the fancy of Providence to set you in the aristocracy. Ugh!” With a piercing scream she started out of her complacent reflection. A horrible olive-hued, leering face appeared over her shoulder in the mirror; a blue-clothed arm stole round her waist. Pamela swung herself free, whisked the hat off her head ready to use it as a weapon should Monsieur Ildefonse pursue his advances. In the dead pause the quick rustle of Madame Eglantine’s light summer flounces were heard on the stairs. Instantly the ex-hairdresser’s countenance lost its satyr smiles, and became composed into its usual mask of smooth propriety. “Is that you, _mon Agneau rose_?” he cooed. “Yes, yes, it is I, _petit rat de mon cœur_,” she replied. These endearments having perfunctorily passed between them, Madame halted on the threshold and sent the glitter of her swift glance from her spouse to her apprentice. “I took the liberty of trying on the hat what I’ve just trimmed, M’dame,” said Pamela then in her brazen way. She wasn’t going to put it into Monsieur Ildefonse’s power to tell on her behind her back, or worse still, to pretend to be shielding her. She knew his slimy ways. “You do well to call it a liberty,” said Madame Ildefonse, showing all her small pointed teeth as if she wanted to bite Pamela. She was panting a little, and there was a sort of whiteness about her nostrils that pointed to considerable if repressed emotion. “But let it pass. You were giving your opinion, I presume, my cabbage-stalk?” “Meess very naturally wished me to admire your exquisite taste, _ma tendre biche_,” he responded. “‘No one,’ says she to me, ‘but Madame Eglantine could have made this inimitable, this absolutely original and distinguished combination, all the while retaining the stamp of the most high tone.’” Monsieur Ildefonse was very glib of tongue.