Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/63

 quickly again to the cosmetic arcadia which had been so rudely stirred by the tragedy.

"Who is this girl Agnes who discovered Miss Blaisdell?" he shot out at the Millefleurs.

The beauty-doctor was now really painful in his excitement. Like his establishment, even his feelings were artificial.

"Agnes?" he repeated. "Why, she was one of Madame's best hair-dressers. See—my dear—show the gentlemen the book of engagements."

It was a large book full of girls' names, each an expert in curls, puffs, "reinforcements," hygienic rolls, transformators, and the numberless other things that made the fearful and wonderful hair-dresses of the day. Agnes's dates were full, for a day ahead.

Kennedy ran his eye over the list of patrons. "Mrs. Burke Collins, 3:30," he read. "Was she a patron, too?"

"Oh, yes," answered Madame. "She used to come here three times a week. It was not vanity. We all knew her, and we all liked her."

Instantly I could read between the lines, and I felt that I had been too charitable to Burke Collins. Here was the wife slaving to secure that beauty which would win back the man with whom she had worked and toiled in the years before they came to New York and success. The "other woman" came here, too, but for a very different reason.

Nothing but business seemed to impress Millefleur, however. "Oh, yes," he volunteered, "we have a fine class. Among my own patients I have Hugh Dayton, the actor, you know, leading man in Blanche