"Yes, my hair _is_ thinning on the forehead," Mrs. Bates would admit. "If
you should happen to have the precise match...."
The match was always difficult, but Jane did not fail to observe how easy
the same would be for herself.
Then Mrs. Bates would have her manicure at the house twice as often as
before, to increase the chance of her being on hand some morning when
Jane should drop in. "Try it yourself--just to see what it's like," she
would suggest; and her own plump and shapely hands would yield their
place on the small red velvet cushion to the long and graceless fingers
of her protegee. And presently the other processes--the soakings, the
washings, the rubbings--would follow.
She also recommended exercise--dumb-bells, for example.
"What's the matter with fencing?" asked Jane. "Truesdale, you know; he's
awfully good to me." She might have found it difficult to cite any
definite example of Truesdale's goodness; perhaps she meant merely that
he never snubbed her, never hectored her.
"Better yet. Fencing by all means."
Jane, moreover, always accompanied Mrs. Bates to the milliner's and to
the dress-maker's. They priced things, debated things, and tried on
things--on themselves, on each other, on the attendants. Mrs. Bates
purchased lavishly for herself, and suggested lavishly in regard to
purchases by Jane.
"You'd better have this," she would say. "It becomes you first-rate--you
won't find anything nicer.
Pages:
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158