Gigi/The Cat [antikvár]

î-|-^on't forget you are going to Aunt Alicia's. Do you hear J^me, Gilberte? Come here and let me do your curls, Gil-berte, do you hear me?' 'Couldn't I go there without having my hair curled. Grandmamma?' 'I don't think so ! ' said Madame Alvarez, quietly. She took an old pair of curling-irons, with prongs that ended in little round metal knobs, and put them to heat over the blue flame of a spirit-lamp while she prepared the tissue-papers. 'Grandmamma, couldn't you crimp my hair in waves down the side of my head for a change?' 'Out of the question. Ringlets at the very ends - that's as far as a girl of your age can possibly go. Now sit down on the footstool.' To do so, Gilberte folded up under her the heron-like legs of a girl of fifteen. Below her tartan skirt, she revealed ribbed cotton stockings to just above the knees, unconscious of the perfect oval shape of her knee-caps. Slender calf and high-arched instep - Madame Alvarez never let her eyes run over these fine points without regretting that her granddaughter had not studied dancing professionally. At the moment she was thinking only of the girl's hair. She had corkscrewed the ends and fixed them in tissue-paper, and was now compressing the ash-blonde ringlets between the heated knobs. With patient, soft-fingered skill, she gathered up the full magnificent weight of finely kept hair into sleek ripples which fell to just below Gilberte's shoulders. The girl sat quite still. The smell of the heated tongs, and the whiff of vanilla in the curling-papers, made her feel drowsy. Besides, Gilberte knew that resistance would be useless. She hardly ever tried to elude the authority exercised by her family. 'Is Mamma singing Frasquita today?' 'Yes. And this evening in Si j'étais Roi. I have told you before, when you're sitting on a low seat you must keep your knees close to each other, and lean both of them to-