'Which ends?' he exclaimed, baffled. 'Mon Dieu! these ends,' and he lifted a handful of the hair on the floor and held it before the eyes of the girl.
'Good Heavens, no! Do you think I am going to pay you for cutting those ends? It's the ends at the top I want cut. Lighten it; that's what I want. Do you think I am a woman in a hairdresser's advertisement to sit all day looking at my hair? I have to get my father's dinner. Lighten it, Mr. Saintou; cut it off; that's what I want.'
'Mon Dieu, no!' Saintou again relapsed from the hairdresser into the man. He too could have decision. He leant against the next chair and set his lips very firmly together. 'By all that is holy, no,' he said; 'you may get some villain Englishman to cut that hair, but me, never.'
'You speak English very well, Mr. Saintou. Have you been long in the country? Well, wash the hair then, and be done. Don't put the soap in my eyes.'
Saintou was in ecstasies. He touched the hair reverently as one would touch the garments of a saint. He laid aside his ordinary brushes and sponges, and going into the shop he brought thence what was best and newest. Do not laugh at him. Have we not all at some time in our lives met with what seemed the embodiment of our ideal; have we not set aside for the time our petty economies and reserves, and brought forth whatever we had that was best, of thought, or smiles, or vesture?
'Ah, mademoiselle,' he said, 'to take care of such hair for ever—that would be heaven. I am a Frenchman; I have a soul; I can feel.'
'Should you be afraid to die a sudden death, Mr. Saintou?' said the quick voice from the depths of a shower of water.
'Ciel! We do not speak of such things, mademoiselle. There will come a time, I know, when my hair will turn grey; then for the sake of my profession I shall be obliged to dye it. There will come a time after that when I shall die; but we do not even think of these things, it is better not.'
'But should you be afraid to die now?' persisted the girl.
'Very much afraid,' said the hairdresser candidly.