Poor Mademoiselle Jeanne did what she could to conceal the luxuriant crop Nature had given her. She wound it in tight coils round the back of her head, where at least she could not see it if she chanced to come across a looking-glass. She brushed it off her forehead with a determination to show as little as possible of it in front, and if a few spiteful stray hairs would not lie down with the rest, she cut them off, much to my distress, for, when talking to her, my eyes were always wandering to the little border of reddish stubble that remained, and I saw her see me seeing, and that made it awkward for both.
Her extreme sensitiveness no doubt originated in the unkind comments made upon her in her childhood. As she grew up, it seemed impossible to efface these early impressions. She had got it into her head that she was the ugly duckling, and neither parents nor friends could persuade her to the contrary. But she gradually accepted what she considered the inevitable, and at the time Claude appeared on the scene (I introduced him to the family) she had sufficiently overcome her shyness, to perform the duties of a young lady of eighteen in her mother's salon, without betraying how much she would have preferred keeping in the background. It was very characteristic of that young lady that, when she did emerge from the background, she would do so with a rush; whether she offered you a chair or a cup of tea, she came upon you unexpectedly, firing as it were, at close quarters, and retreating before you could capture her.
"I know I'm a coward," she said to me one day when we were talking of heroes, "and it's just because I'm a coward that there is no virtue I admire more than courage. If I were a man, I would, I could"——
There she stopped short, and left me to guess the rest. I often noticed that when her thoughts were about to come to the surface, she would get alarmed at her own boldness, and take refuge in some commonplace remark, or relapse into silence, leaving your curiosity ungratified as to what was really going on in her mind.
With Claude she was more at her ease than with any of the other young men that came to the house. This was not to be wondered at, for Claude, as I have said, was the sort of man who would inspire even little street girls with confidence. I don't think he ever made any comments on her hair, but perhaps his eye too sometimes rested unconsciously on the stubbles, and thus exercised its influence; certain it is that an influence was at work. The little refractory hairs that had been a source of so much trouble, were allowed to follow their natural bent, and began to wave and frizz. That was a symptom: others were to follow. One evening conversation had turned on skulls and brains, and the doctor had given us some interesting facts relating to the comparative sizes of the brains in man and in the inferior animals. Claude, who had made quite a special study of anatomy, took up the subject from the artistic point of view, and showed the relationship between brains and beauty.
"The great artists," he said, "have ever given due predominance to the cranium over the eyes, nose, and mouth. The receptacle of the brains must lord it over the representatives of the senses. That is, too, why they have made so much of the hair, using it to give full development to the upper part of the head. It's a most fascinating art, that of the hairdresser," he wound up, "and I sometimes feel that Anch'io might have been Parruchiere! I think I missed my vocation!"
These observations of Claude's had a remarkable effect. The coils were loosened, a little at first, then by degrees more; and the material at hand, one could not help noticing, was being reconstructed after the style adopted by the immortal Venus of Milo. At that time Claude was but moderately interested in Jeanne, but, much as a gardener looks with satisfaction at the fresh shoots of a plant that seemed doomed, so he looked with pleasure on the rising waves which he knew had come at his bidding. His eyes had a way of indicating a little in advance what his lips were going to say; it was a case of light travelling faster than sound; so first came the twinkle and then the words. Jeanne got the full benefit of the approving twinkle, and was relieved when she found that it was not followed by a congratulatory speech. He only said—
"I see your brain is struggling for space," and then changed the subject.
It is surprising how symptoms have a way of begetting symptoms, and what striking effects they are apt to have on sensitive natures like Claude's. He became more and more of a gardener, and brought beneficent sunshine into the life of the budding flower.
On the 15th of August he and Jeanne were together at the Turkish Embassy. They were amongst the guests invited to witness the grand spectacle provided for the pleasure-seeking Parisian on that day, the Mi-Août, as it is called. It was the great Napoleon's birthday, henceforth to be consecrated as the National Holiday. The newly founded Empire spared nothing to organise fêtes in general, and this one in particular, on the grandest scale. All the resources of the decorator's art had been brought to bear on the Champs Elysées, and with such success that no fields could have looked more Elysian. The sculptor had contributed colossal figures, the architect triumphal arches, and an untold number of lampions were suspended in festoons which reached in gradually ascending curves from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile.