Pamela cast, in passing, a hasty glance between the green curtains of the Bureau, to assure herself that her pet aversion was safely employed.
He had removed his wig on account of the heat, and she turned her eyes quickly away from the revolting spectacle of his close-cropped bristling black head and the roll of olive fat at the back of his neck above the embroidered collar of his blue cloth coat.
The pink, be-padded, be-wreathed, be-gilded, be-mirrored, be-draped salons of Madame Eglantine were empty. Pamela walked slowly into the middle of the front room and hesitated. Her own charming shape was reflected from every possible angle. Down below, the whole Place seemed asleep; a buzz of flies within and without, a lazy footfall on the shady side and a distant rumble emphasised the universal drowsiness.
When Madame la Marquise’s coach came along there would be a prodigious clatter to wake them all up. Pamela knew that she was quite safe. It’s all very well to trim a hat. You never know what it’s like till you’ve tried it on.
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.