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.’”