threw himself on her shoulders.

"You mustn't move," he whispered desperately, "you'll tear your hair
out. I tell you no harm's been done. Everything is all right. Please,
please don't cry like that. It will ruin my business. There are
others in the establishment. Stop!" he shook her viciously.

Linda had risen, terrorized; and Mrs. Condon, with waving plucking
hands, was sobbing an appeal to be released. "My head, my head," she
repeated. "I assure you"--the man motioned to a pallid girl to hold
her in the chair. With a towel to protect his hand he undid a screw,
lifted off the cap and untwisted the cotton from a bound lock of
hair; releasing it, in turn, from the spindle it fell forward in a
complete corkscrew over Mrs. Condon's face.

"Do you see!" he demanded. "Perfect. I give you my word they'll all
be like that. The cursed heat ran up on me," he added in a swift
aside to his assistant. "Has Mrs. Bellows gone? Who's still in the
place? Here, loose that binding ... thank God, that one is all
right, too."

Together they unfastened most of the connections, and a growing
fringe of long remarkable curls marked Mrs. Condon's pain-drawn and
dabbled face. Linda sobbed uncontrollably; but perhaps, after all,
nothing frightful had happened. Her poor mother! Then fear again
tightened about her heart at the perturbed expression that overtook
the hair-dresser. He was trying in vain to remove one of the caps.
She caught enigmatic words--"the borax, crystallized ... solid. It
would take a plumber ... have to go."