air of a customer making his choice, and as the street was even darker than the store, Siska could hardly see him. From time to time, while busy tidying up her shop, she threw the unknown a stealthy glance. That didn't please him? What did he need to decoy him into the shop? Poor woman! Laurent wondered whether she sold many of these things.
Siska, no longer counting upon this customer, began walking toward the little room at the back of the shop. In opening the door Laurent rang a little bell; she turned and came toward him with the alacrity and the engaging smile that shopkeepers display before a customer.
In the most serious manner possible Laurent asked to try on some caps. She looked him up and down, trying to guess which among her stock of caps would please him. This rapid examination gave her, without doubt, a sufficiently high notion of Paridael's elegance, for she showed him the dearest ones, fancy sailors' caps such as stylish travellers wear. But Laurent asked to see peasants' caps, stevedores' caps, or carters' caps, and pretended to fix his choice upon huge tufted, peaked, brown woolen ones.
Siska looked at him suspiciously. He surely was an odd one! Or he had good reason to disguise himself when it was not carnival time! Nothing good about that. She filled Laurent's cup of malicious joy to the brim by quickly removing her bunch of keys from the counter; he watched her out of the corner of his eye. Laurent had occasion to remember, because of its consequences, this sudden desire to masquerade, and his fancy for plebeian headgear.
Keeping one of the flashiest specimens of the assortment, a rakish cap that would have delighted the heart
