But now I must see the robe." "Monsieur Martin," Pilar returned reproachfully, "don't you know that my tailor respects himself far too much to send home one of his creations before the last moment ?" "It is always the same story," he complained mournfully; "I am to arrange a coiffure for Madame la Comtesse, the coiffure is to harmonize with the whole, and I am not permitted to see the robe." "But I have given you the general idea of it." "General idea! general idea! Does Madame la Comtesse think that that will suffice ?" "For an artist like you, Monsieur Martin--" "Oh, of course--for an artist like me! I can answer for myself, but how do I know if the tailor has caught madame's style correctly?
I am perfectly competent to compose a coiffure which shall agree entirely with the type of Madame la Comtesse, but what if the tailor has been mistaken--what if the robe turns out a disguise rather than an enhancement?
In that case, adieu to the harmony." Pilar reassured the sorely-tried master, and exchanged glances of amusement with Wilhelm.

She had described him to Wilhelm beforehand as a Parisian oddity, and invited him to be present during the visit.
While Anne enveloped her mistress in the white dressing-mantle, Monsieur Martin laid out the battery of combs, brushes, and tortoise-shell hair-pins provided by the maid, added, out of his own box, two hand-glasses, and a box of gold-powder, and began to loosen the countess' abundant tresses.

As the golden waves flowed over the back of the chair to the ground, he murmured, drawing his fingers repeatedly through the silken mass: "What a fleece, Madame la Comtesse! It takes a Spaniard to have such hair." He now began rapidly and skillfully to comb, brush, coil, and fasten, to smooth away here, loosen there, shook the gold dust over it, touched the locks upon the forehead, placed the diadem, and fell back a step to review his work.

A groan burst from him.
"That is not it! that is not it!" he wailed, and shook his head dolefully from side to side.

"I am not permitted to see the costume of Madame la Comtesse, I am not to use pads or curling-irons, and yet all is to be in the grand style--only a diadem--not a flower, not a feather! No, it will not do." He glared at her for a moment, and then cried suddenly, "No, it positively will not do!" And before Pilar could prevent him, he had rapidly pulled out all the hairpins, removed the diadem, and disarranged with nervous fingers the whole artistic edifice.
"A coiffure that bears my signature must not be allowed to leave my hands like that," he said.