shing as if she were singing it over softly to herself. This
distressed the hairdresser not a little, and he remained silent.

'What shall I pay you, Mr. Saintou?' said the little lady, when the
large hat was once more on the head.

'If mademoiselle would but come again,' said the hairdresser, putting
both hands resolutely behind his back.

'When I come again I shall pay you both for that time and this,' she
said, with perhaps more tact than could have been expected of her. 'And
if you want to live long, Mr. Saintou, don't feel. If I should feel I
should die off, quick, sharp, like a moth that flies into the candle.'
She made a little gesture with her hand, as if to indicate the ease and
suddenness with which the supposed catastrophe was to take place, and
hobbled down the street. Saintou stood in the doorway looking after her,
and his heart went from him.

He sent her flowers--flowers that a duchess might have been proud to
receive. He sent them more than once, and they were accepted; he argued
much from that. He made friends with the baker in order that he might
bow to him morning and evening. Then he waited. He said to himself,
'She is English. If I go to see her, if I put my hand on my heart and
weep, she will jeer at me; but if I wait and work for her in silence,
then she will believe.' He made a parlour for her in the room above his
shop; and every week, as he had time and money, he went out to choose
some ornament for it. His maiden sister watched these actions with
suspicion, threw scornful looks at when he observed her watchfulness,
and lent a kindly helping hand when he was out of sight. The parlour
grew into a shrine ready for its divinity, and the hairdresser worked
and waited in silence. In this he made a mistake, but he feared her
laughter.

Meanwhile the girl also waited. She could not go back to the
hairdresser's shop lest she should seem to invite a renewal of those
attentions which had given her the sweet surprise of love. The law of
her woman's nature stood like a lion in the path. She waited through the
months of the dreary winter till the one gleam of sunshine which had
come into her hard young life had faded, till the warmth it had kindled
in her heart died--as a lamp's flame dies for lack of oil; died--as a
flower dies in the drought; died into anger for the man who had
disturbed her peace, and when she thought she cared for him no more she
went again to get her hair cut.

'You have come,'