"I'm tired to death and I'm pounded to pieces." Her husband turned toward her.

He opened his lips to introduce Eileen.
His wife forestalled him.
"So this is the Eileen you have been ravin' about for years," she said.
"I thought you said she was a pretty girl." Eileen's soul knew one sick instant of recoil.

She looked from James Heitman to Caroline, his wife, and remembered that he had a habit of calling her "Callie." All that paint and powder and lipstick and brilliantine could do to make the ponderous, big woman more ghastly had been done, but in the rush of the long ride through which her husband had forced her, the colors had mixed and slipped, the false waves were displaced.

She was not in any condition to criticize the appearance of another woman.

For one second Eileen hesitated, then she lifted her shaking hands to her hat.
"I have been hounded out of my senses," she said apologetically, "and have been so terribly anxious for fear you wouldn't get here on time.
Please, Aunt Caroline, let us go to a hotel, some place where we can straighten up comfortably." "Well, what's your hurry ?" said Aunt Caroline coolly.