Pilar placed it on the table in front of him.
He contemplated it earnestly, and then murmured:
"Good, very good. But now I must see the robe."
"Monsieur Martin," Pilar returned reproachfully, "don't you know that my tailor respects himself far too much to send home one of his creations before the last moment?"
"It is always the same story," he complained mournfully; "I am to arrange a coiffure for Madame la Comtesse, the coiffure is to harmonize with the whole, and I am not permitted to see the robe."
"But I have given you the general idea of it."
"General idea! general idea! Does Madame la Comtesse think that that will suffice?"
"For an artist like you, Monsieur Martin—"
"Oh, of course—for an artist like me! I can answer for myself, but how do I know if the tailor has caught madame's style correctly? I am perfectly competent to compose a coiffure which shall agree entirely with the type of Madame la Comtesse, but what if the tailor has been mistaken—what if the robe turns out a disguise rather than an enhancement? In that case, adieu to the harmony."
Pilar reassured the sorely-tried master, and exchanged glances of amusement with Wilhelm. She had described him to Wilhelm beforehand as a Parisian oddity, and invited him to be present during the visit. While Anne enveloped her mistress in the white dressing-mantle, Monsieur Martin laid out the battery of combs, brushes, and tortoise-shell hair-pins provided by the maid, added, out of his own box, two hand-glasses, and a box of gold-powder, and began to loosen the countess' abundant tresses. As the golden waves flowed over the back of the chair to the ground, he murmured, drawing his fingers repeatedly through the silken mass: