The hotel hairdresser, in a white coat, with an immense head of curled and discoloured yellow hair, stood before a shut bedroom door. It flew open suddenly, and then closed sharply behind Laura di san Marzano.
“Vous voila donc! Eh bien, il est trop tard.”
Her voice was ice, her face scornful and unbelieving as she listened to the man’s torrent of excuses for his tardiness.
“Assez,” said Laura. “Madame est fort mécontente. Elle ne veut plus de vous.”
“Mademoiselle——”
“C’est inutile. Madame se passera de vous.”
And as the hairdresser turned away, grumbling and disconcerted, she added superbly:
“J’arrangerai la chose. Soyez exacte demain. Mais pour ce soir, c’est moi qui coifferai madame.”
Much later in the evening, when I had long ago despatched my pupil to the bedroom opening out of mine, I returned for a moment to the hot and strident lounge in order to make certain enquiries at the office.
Mama was in a white wicker armchair, with crimson and orange cushions overflowing upon either side of it, and showing up the elaborate waves of her hair, as black as Laura’s own. The paint that I had seen on her face earlier in the day was now concentrated into one scarlet curve upon her mouth, her white lace dress was held up by narrow black velvet straps cutting across the opulent creaminess of her shoulders, and the electric light above her head had fastened upon the diamond butterfly bows of her satin shoes, so that they winked and flashed right across the hall.