"I am forgiven?"
"I suppose so!"
"Then grant me a favor—one favor! Permit me to touch the beautiful hair!"
Without waiting for the permission, the eager little hands caught up the coiled strands, and in a moment the candlelight was again chasing the red tints and the bronze through the dark waves.
"My faith, but it is beautiful! Beautiful! And what a pity!"
"A pity—?"
"That no man may see it!" For an instant Jacqueline buried her face in the silky mass; then, like a little bright bird, looked up again. "A man would go mad for this!"
"For a thing like that? Absurd!"
"Yet a thing like that can demolish Monsieur Max, and leave in his place—"
"What?"