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“I said it wouldn’t last and I still say it won’t last. It’s contrary
to human nature.”
“Is she happy?”
“They’re both happy.”
“I suppose you don’t see very much of them.”
“At first I saw quite a lot of them. But now ...” Mrs. Tower
pursed her lips a little. “Jane is becoming very grand.”
“What do you mean?” I laughed.
“I think I should tell you that she’s here to-night.”
“Here?”
I was startled. I looked round the table again. Our hostess was a
delightful and an entertaining woman, but I could not imagine that
she would be likely to invite to a dinner such as this the elderly and
dowdy wife of an obscure architect. Mrs. Tower saw my perplexity
and was shrewd enough to see what was in my mind. She smiled
thinly.
“Look on the left of our host.”
I looked. Oddly enough the woman who sat there had by her
fantastic appearance attracted my attention the moment I was ushered
into the crowded drawing-room. I thought I noticed a gleam of
recognition in her eye, but to the best of my belief I had never seen
her before. She was not a young woman, for her hair was iron-grey; it
was cut very short and clustered thickly round her well-shaped head
in tight curls. She made no attempt at youth, for she was conspicuous
in that gathering by using neither lipstick, rouge, nor powder. Her
face, not a particularly handsome one, was red and weather-beaten;
but because it owed nothing to artifice it had a naturalness that was
very pleasing. It contrasted oddly with the whiteness of her shoulders.
They were really magnificent. A woman of thirty might have been
proud of them. But her dress was extraordinary. I had not seen often
anything more audacious. It was cut very low, with short skirts,
which were then the fashion, in black and yellow; it had almost the
effect of fancy-dress and yet so became her that though on anyone
else it would have been outrageous, on her it had the inevitable
simplicity of nature. And to complete the impression of an
eccentricity in which there was no pose and of an extravagance in
which there was no ostentation she wore, attached by a broad black
ribbon, a single eye-glass.