pantaloons, tied her cravat, buttoned her waistcoat up to the throat, and put on a coat which admirably fitted her beautiful figure.
“Oh, that is very good—indeed, it is very good!” said Louise, looking at her with admiration; “but that beautiful black hair, those magnificent braids, which made all the ladies sigh with envy—will they go under a man’s hat like the one I see down there?”
“You shall see,” said Eugénie. And with her left hand seizing the thick mass, which her long fingers could scarcely grasp, she took in her right hand a pair of long scissors, and soon the steel met through the rich and splendid hair, which fell in a cluster at her feet as she leaned back to keep it from her coat. Then she grasped the front hair, which she also cut off, without expressing the least regret; on the contrary, her eyes sparkled with greater pleasure than usual under her ebony eyebrows.
“Oh, the magnificent hair!” said Louise, with regret.
“And am I not a hundred times better thus?” cried Eugénie, smoothing the scattered curls of her hair, which had now quite a masculine appearance; “and do you not think me handsomer so?”
“Oh, you are beautiful—always beautiful!” cried Louise. “Now, where are you going?”
“To Brussels, if you like; it is the nearest frontier. We can go to Brussels, Liège, Aix-la-Chapelle; then up the Rhine to Strasbourg. We will cross Switzerland, and go down into Italy by the Saint-Gothard. Will that do?”
“Yes.”
“What are you looking at?”
“I am looking at you; indeed you are adorable like that! One would say you were carrying me off.”