soft reassurances of her mother.




IX


In a recurrence of her surprising concern of the day before Mrs.
Condon declined to leave her dearest Linda alone; and, their arms
caught together in a surging affection, they walked down Fifth
Avenue toward the hairdresser's. There was a diffused gray sparkle
of sunlight--it was early for the throngs--through which they passed
rapidly to the accompaniment of a rapid eager chatter. Linda wore a
deep smooth camel's hair cape, over which her intense black hair
poured like ink, and her face was shaded by a dipping green velvet
hat. Her mother, in one of the tightly cut suits she affected, had
never been more like a perfect companion.

They saw, in the window of a store for men, a set of violent purple
wool underwear, and barely escaped hysterics at the thought of Mr.
Moses Feldt in such a garb. They giggled idiotically at the
spectacle of a countryman fearfully making the sharp descent from
the top of a lurching omnibus. And then, when they had reached the
place of Mrs. Condon's appointment, stopped at the show of
elaborately waved hair on wax heads and chose which, probably, would
resemble the elder and which, in a very short while now, Linda.

There was an impressive interior, furnished in gray panels and
silvery wood; and the young woman at the desk was more surprisingly