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136
Master Eustace


she's sad. She's weary of her position there, it's so public."

"Yesterday she was very pale," he would say at another time. "I'm sure she wants rest. That constant movement can't be good for her. It's true," he added, "that she moves very slowly."

"Yes," said I, "she seemed to me to move very slowly."

"And so beautifully! Still, with me," Sanguinetti went on, "she shall be perfectly quiet: I will see how that suits her."

"I should think," I objected, "that she would need a little exercise."

He stared a moment, and then accused me, as he often did, of "making game of him." "There is something in your tone in saying that," he declared; but he very shortly afterward forgot my sarcastic tendencies, and came to announce to me a change in the lady's coiffure: "Have you noticed that she has her hair dressed differently? I don't know that I like it: it covers up her forehead. But it's beautifully done, it's entirely new, and you will see that it will set the fashion for all Paris."

"Do they take the fashion from her?" I asked.

"Always. All the knowing people keep a note of her successive coiffures."

"And when you have carried her off, what will the knowing people do?"