"No hairdresser! no dress! no coach!" she panted, while Chon rushed to her and Jean picked up the letter.
Thus it ran in a feminine handwriting:
"Be on your guard. You will have no hairdresser, dress or coach this evening. I hope you will get this in time. As I do not seek your gratitude, I do not name myself. If you know of a sincere friend, take that as me."
"This is the last straw," cried Jean in his rage. "By the
Blue Moon, I must kill somebody! No hairdresser? I will scalp this Lubin. For it is half-past seven, and he has not turned up. Malediction!"
He was not going to court, so he did not hesitate to tear at his hair.
"The trouble is the dress," groaned Chon. "Hairdressers can be found anywhere."
The countess said nothing, but she heaved a sigh which would have melted the Choiseul party had they heard it. Then:
"Come, come," said Chon; "let us be calm. Let us hunt up another hairdresser, and see about that dress not coming."
"Then there is the coach," said Jean. "It ought to have been here by this. It is a plot. Will you not make Sartines arrest the guilty ones—Maupeou sentence them to death—and the whole gang be burned with their fellows on Execution Place? I want to rack the hairdresser, break the dressmaker on the wheel, and flay the coachbuilder alive."