It was her hair that surprised him. As a shop assistant, she must have worn it rolled up. Old Merrilees would never permit anything else behind the counters. But her hair now, her thick fair hair, which gleamed in the electric light, pale blonde on one side, palely shadowed on the other, was parted in the middle and fell in two flaxen pigtails like a peasant’s or rather like a peasant in a ballet. He didn’t think he’d be able to put up with this.
