“No, truly—you comfort me.”
“Come and help me.”
From the same drawer she took a man’s complete costume, from the boots to the coat, and a provision of linen, where there was nothing superfluous, but every requisite. Then, with a promptitude which indicated that this was not the first time she had amused herself by adopting the garb of the opposite sex, Eugénie drew on the boots and pantaloons, tied her cravat, buttoned her waistcoat up to the throat, and put on a coat which admirably fitted her beautiful figure.
“Oh, that is very good—indeed, it is very good!” said Louise, looking at her with admiration; “but that beautiful black hair, those magnificent braids, which made all the ladies sigh with envy,—will they go under a man’s hat like the one I see down there?”
“You shall see,” said Eugénie. And with her left hand seizing the thick mass, which her long fingers could scarcely grasp, she took in her right hand a pair of long scissors, and soon the steel met through the rich and splendid hair, which fell in a cluster at her feet as she leaned back to keep it from her coat. Then she grasped the front hair, which she also cut off, without expressing the least regret; on the contrary, her eyes sparkled with greater pleasure than usual under her ebony eyebrows.
“Oh, the magnificent hair!” said Louise, with regret.
“And am I not a hundred times better thus?” cried Eugénie, smoothing the scattered curls of her hair, which had now quite a masculine appearance; “and do you not think me handsomer so?”
“Oh, you are beautiful—always beautiful!” cried Louise. “Now, where are you going?”
“To Brussels, if you like; it is the nearest frontier. We can go to Brussels, Liège, Aix-la-Chapelle; then up the Rhine to Strasbourg. We will cross Switzerland, and go down into Italy by the Saint-Gothard. Will that do?”