The countess had come to her senses but only to see the dreadful dilemma the better.
At the height of this scene of tribulation, echoing from the boudoir to the street door, while the footmen were blundering over each other in confusion at a score of different orders, a young blade in an applegreen silk coat and vest, lilac breeches and white silk stockings, skipped out of a cab, crossed the deserted sill and the courtyard, bounded up the stairs and rapped on the dressing-room door.
Jean was wrestling with a chins stand with which his coat-tail was entangled, while steadying a huge Japanese idol which he had struck too hard with his fist, when the three knocks, wary, modest and delicate, came at the panel.
Jean opened it with a fist which would have beaten in the gates of Gaza. But the stranger eluded the shock by a leap, and falling on his feet in the third position of dancing, he said:
"My lord, I come to offer my service as hairdresser to the Countess Dubarry, who, I hear, is commanded to present herself at court."
"A hairdresser!" cried the Dubarrys, ready to hug him and dragging him into the room. "Did Lubin send you?"
angel," said the countess.
"Nobody sent me," returned the young man. "I read in the newspapers that your ladyship was going to court this evening, and I thought I might have a chance of showing that I have a new idea for a court headdress."
"What might be your name, younker?" demanded Jean, distrustfully.