“I don’t think so. It was chosen for me by a Frenchwoman whose taste is indisputable.”
“I have not always found French taste indisputable,” said Julia, remembering with a certain shame some of the purchases that she and Maudie had made in days gone by. “Your toque’s all right, but what have you been doing to your hair?”
“I have had my hair shampooed and brushed, and I intend to wear it in another mode.”
“It looks horrid!” said Julia.
“I don’t think so,” answered Regina, her color still heightened and a great accession of dignity in her manner. “You do not always wear your hair the same, why should I? I have got to that time of life when what suited me at thirty does not still suit me at fifty, and my hair showed signs of wearing off the forehead, and I do not like a bald forehead either in a man or a woman.”
“Oh, I daresay you are right. Of course, you are at liberty to make whatever sort of a guy you like of yourself, only don’t ask me to admire it, that’s all.”
The tone was rude, and Regina felt stabbed to the heart.
“I do not always admire your taste in dress, Julia,” she said very quietly. “I sometimes think that if a mother had all her life had a frightful wart on her nose, her children would resent its removal because they had grown accustomed to it. I have chosen, my dear, to do my hair in a new fashion, and I am not to be turned from my purpose by even your wishes. I have come to the conclusion that I have paid too little attention in the past to the details which most women think of paramount importance. I am going to change all that and I have begun with my hair and my toque.”
She did not wait for Julia to reply, but turned and went quietly and quickly out of the room, leaving Julia speechless and astonished.
“Now, what has happened to her?” said Julia. “Why should she, all at once, take to altering herself like that? Surely mother isn’t going to be frivolous in her old age. I wonder what daddy will say. She’s going to ‘alter all that.’ Well, of course—she’s at liberty to please herself. I suppose I ought not to have jumped on her like that—poor mother!”