Dangerous as the whole proceeding seemed nothing really happened,
and Linda's fears gradually faded into a mere curiosity and
interest. A curtain hung across the door to the rest of the
establishment, but it had been brushed partly aside; and she could
see, in the compartment they had vacated, another man bending with
waving irons over the liberated mass of a woman's hair. He was very
much like M. Joseph, but he was younger and had only a dark scrap of
mustache. As he caught up the hair with a quick double twist he
leaned very close to the woman's face, whispering with an expression
that never changed, an expression like that of the wax heads in the
show-case. He bent so low that Linda was certain their cheeks had
touched. She pondered at length over this, gazing now at the man
beyond and now at M. Joseph flitting with the cold-air tube about
her mother; wondering if, when she grew older, she would like a
hair-dresser's cheek against hers. Linda decided not. The idea
didn't shock her, the woman in the other space plainly liked it;
still she decided she wouldn't. A different kind of man, she told
herself, would be nicer.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, unpleasant odor--the odor
of scorched hair; and she was absolutely rigid with horror at an
agonized cry from her mother.

"It's burning me terribly," the latter cried. "Oh, I can't stand it.
Stop! Stop!"

M. Joseph, as white as plaster, rushed to the wall and reversed the
handle, and Mrs. Condon started from the chair, her face now
streaming with actual tears; but before she could escape the man