Félice, another maid, anointed and bathed the small feet that twinkled and so charmed the nightly Aërial audiences.
Gradually Mademoiselle began to notice the candy man stopping to mop his brow and cool himself beneath her window. In the hands of her maids she was deprived for the time of her vocation—the charming and binding to her chariot of man. To lose time was displeasing to Mademoiselle. Here was the candy man—no fit game for her darts, truly—but of the sex upon which she had been born to make war.
After casting upon him looks of unseeing coldness for a dozen times, one afternoon she suddenly thawed and poured down upon him a smile that put to shame the sweets upon his cart.
“Candy man,” she said, cooingly, while Sidonie followed her impulsive dive, brushing the heavy auburn hair, “don’t you think I am beautiful?”
The candy man laughed harshly, and looked up, with his thin jaw set, while he wiped his forehead with a red-and-blue handkerchief.
“Yer’d make a dandy magazine cover,” he said, grudgingly. “Beautiful or not is for them that cares. It’s not my line. If yer lookin’ for bouquets apply elsewhere between nine and twelve. I think we’ll have rain.”
Truly, fascinating a candy man is like killing rabbits in a deep snow; but the hunter’s blood is widely
[119]
