“You never were that to us,” said Julia, with quick reproach. “I hope you never thought we thought so, for we never did.”
“Well, well, well, I will wear my hair this way for a little while, and if you and dear father do not like it I will put it back into the old way again. It is bad for the hair to dress it always in the same fashion.”
“Well, now I come to think of it, it looks awfully nice, and you’ve lovely hair and a glorious complexion.”
At this the color on Regina’s cheeks deepened into a veritable rose blush. Julia hurried on—“It’s a beautiful hat,” she said. “Where did you get it? How did you light on this Frenchwoman? Was it very expensive? It’s worth it, whatever it cost.”
“No,” said Regina, “it was four guineas; I don’t call that very expensive for a hat with good feathers.”
“Oh, not a bit! And even if it was, you can afford it. I think you are quite right, now you have chucked the regeneration business, to start regenerating your own person. I admit it gave me a shock when you came in. You know, somehow one doesn’t like the first idea of one’s mother being tampered with.”
Then Regina told Julia how she came to put herself in the hands of Madame Florence and the little Frenchwoman on the first floor—that is to say, she told her in part, not giving her reasons, her actual reasons, or the source of her information concerning them.
“But how will you do your hair to-morrow morning?”
“I do not know quite how I shall do it. I am going to Madame Florence every day for a week, so that she may do it and get it into the proper set. When she had arranged my hair she gave me a lesson on a dummy, so that I really do know how things should be, and she thinks after a week I shall be quite able to do it myself. Besides, as she says, it makes such a difference—the way your hair is accustomed to go.”
“You’ll never be able to wave your own hair, mother.”