She was a sensualist whose sensuality, hard, metallic, glittering, encased her like armour.
At Gabriella's approach Miss Murphy fluttered off cooingly in the direction of a fresh customer, and only the festively garlanded French mirror witnessed the meeting of the two who had been schoolgirls together.

Swift as an arrow there shot through Gabriella's mind, "I wonder what Ben O'Hara would think of her ?" Then she checked the dangerous flight of her fancy, for she remembered that O'Hara's thoughts about anything no longer concerned her.
"Are you buying a hat ?" inquired Florrie curiously.
"No, I belong here.

I am Madame Dinard." "You don't mean it! I never should have believed it! The idea of your being a dressmaker.

That's why you look so smart, I suppose.

You're the smartest thing I've seen anywhere, but you look older, Gabriella." "Well, you don't." It was perfectly true.