In her trimly fitting dress of blue serge, with her small straw hat ornamented by stiff black quills, she looked fresher, harder, more durably glazed than ever.

A slight excess, too deep a carmine in her smooth cheeks, too high a polish on her pale gold hair, too thick a dusk on her lashes; this was the only flaw that one could detect in her appearance.

If men liked that sort of thing, and they apparently did, Corinna reflected, then they could scarcely complain of an emphasis on perfection.
"I've just got back," began Rose Stribling in a tone as soft as her metallic voice could produce.

"It's been an age since I've seen you--not since the night of that stupid dinner at the Berkeleys', and I'm so much interested in the news I have heard." For a minute Corinna stared at her.

"Yes, my shop has been very successful," she answered, after a pause in which she tried and failed to think of a reply that would sound more disdainful.