A Fair Barbarian Part 20

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Lucia, starting. "I'd rather not--just now."

"Well," commented Octavia, "that sounds as if they must be pretty unpleasant. Why don't you want to? They will be quite as bad to-morrow.

And to refuse to tell me one is a bad beginning. It looks as if you were frightened; and it isn't good practice for you to be frightened at such a little thing."

Lucia felt convicted. She made an effort to regain her composure.

"No, it is not," she said. "But that is always the way. I am continually telling myself that I _will_ be courageous and candid; and, the first time any thing happens, I fail. I _will_ tell you one thing."

She stopped short here, and looked at Octavia guiltily.

"It is something--I think I would do if--if I were in your place," Lucia stammered. "A very little thing indeed."

"Well?" remarked Octavia anxiously.

Lucia lost her breath, caught it again, and proceeded cautiously, and with blushes at her own daring.

"If I were in your place," she said, "I think--that, perhaps--only perhaps, you know--I would not wear--my hair--_quite_ so low down--over my forehead."

Octavia sprang from her seat, and ran to the pier-gla.s.s over the mantle.

She glanced at the reflection of her own startled, pretty face, and then, putting her hand up to the soft blonde "bang" which met her brows, turned to Lucia.

"Isn't it becoming?" she asked breathlessly.

"Oh, yes!" Lucia answered. "Very."

Octavia started.

"Then, why wouldn't you wear it?" she cried. "What do you mean?"

Lucia felt her position truly a delicate one. She locked her hands, and braced herself; but she blushed vividly.

"It may sound rather silly when I tell you why, Octavia," she said; "but I really do think it is a sort of reason. You know, in those absurd pictures of actresses, bangs always seem to be the princ.i.p.al feature. I saw some in the shop-windows when I went to Harriford with grandmamma.

And they were such dreadful women,--some of them,--and had so very few clothes on, that I can't help thinking I shouldn't like to look like them, and"--

"Does it make me look like them?"

"Oh, very little!" answered Lucia; "very little indeed, of course; but"--

"But it's the same thing after all," put in Octavia. "That's what you mean."

"It is so very little," faltered Lucia, "that--that perhaps it isn't a reason."

Octavia looked at herself in the gla.s.s again.

"It isn't a very good reason," she remarked, "but I suppose it will do."

She paused, and looked Lucia in the face.

"I don't think that's a little thing," she said. "To be told you look like an _opera bouffe_ actress."

"I did not mean to say so," cried Lucia, filled with the most poignant distress. "I beg your pardon, indeed--I--oh, dear! I was afraid you wouldn't like it. I felt that it was taking a great liberty."

"I don't like it," answered Octavia; "but that can't be helped. I didn't exactly suppose I should. But I wasn't going to say any thing about _your_ hair when _I_ began," glancing at poor Lucia's coiffure, "though I suppose I might."

"You might say a thousand things about it!" cried Lucia piteously. "I know that mine is not only in bad taste, but it is ugly and unbecoming."

"Yes," said Octavia cruelly, "it is."

"And yours is neither the one nor the other," protested Lucia. "You know I told you it was pretty, Octavia."

Octavia walked over to the table, upon which stood Miss Belinda's work-basket, and took therefrom a small and gleaming pair of scissors, returning to the mantle-gla.s.s with them.

"How short shall I cut it?" she demanded.

"Oh!" exclaimed Lucia, "don't, don't!"

For answer, Octavia raised the scissors, and gave a snip. It was a savage snip, and half the length and width of her love-locks fell on the mantle; then she gave another snip, and the other half fell.

Lucia scarcely dared to breathe.

For a moment Octavia stood gazing at herself, with pale face and dilated eyes. Then suddenly the folly of the deed she had done seemed to reveal itself to her.

"Oh!" she cried out. "Oh, how diabolical it looks!"

She turned upon Lucia.

"Why did you make me do it?" she exclaimed. "It's all your fault--every bit of it;" and, flinging the scissors to the other end of the room, she threw herself into a chair, and burst into tears.

Lucia's anguish of mind was almost more than she could bear. For at least three minutes she felt herself a criminal of the deepest dye; after the three minutes had elapsed, however, she began to reason, and called to mind the fact that she was failing as usual under her crisis.

"This is being a coward again," she said to herself. "It is worse than to have said nothing. It is true that she will look more refined, now one can see a little of her forehead; and it is cowardly to be afraid to stand firm when I really think so. I--yes, I will say something to her."

"Octavia," she began aloud, "I am sure you are making a mistake again."

This as decidedly as possible, which was not very decidedly. "You--you look very much--nicer."

"I look _ghastly_!" said Octavia, who began to feel rather absurd.

"You do not. Your forehead--you have the prettiest forehead I ever saw, Octavia," said Lucia eagerly; "and your eyebrows are perfect. I--wish you would look at yourself again."

Rather to her surprise, Octavia began to laugh under cover of her handkerchief: reaction had set in, and, though the laugh was a trifle hysterical, it was still a laugh. Next she gave her eyes a final little dab, and rose to go to the gla.s.s again. She looked at herself, touched up the short, waving fringe left on her forehead, and turned to Lucia, with a resigned expression.

"Do you think that any one who was used to seeing it the other way would--would think I looked horrid?" she inquired anxiously.

"They would think you prettier,--a great deal," Lucia answered earnestly.

"Don't you know, Octavia, that nothing could be really unbecoming to you?

You have that kind of face."

For a few seconds Octavia seemed to lose herself in thought of a speculative nature.

"Jack always said so," she remarked at length.