She smoked too many cigarettes for 1901.

She had her curly hair "bobbed" (though the term was not invented then).

She put up her feet too high and too often; so much so that the scandalized Bertie saw she wore black knickerbockers and no petticoats under her smart "tailor-made." She snapped your head off, was short, sharp and insolent, joked too much with the spectacled women clerks (who became her willing slaves); then would ask Bertie about his best girl and tell him he'd got jolly good teeth, a good biceps and quite a nice beginning of a moustache.
But she was a worker: no doubt of that! Of course, in the dead season there were not many clients to shock or to win over by her nonchalant manners, only a few women who required advice as to houses, stocks, and shares, law, or private enquiries as to the good faith of husbands or fiances.

Such as found their way up in the lift were a little disappointed at seeing Beryl in Vivie's chair or at not being received by their old friend Honoria Fraser.

But Beryl was too good a business woman to put them off with any license of speech or manners.