At the moment they were busy stripping off from the lady's face a thick layer of dried enamel that had been put on the night before.
Had Valeria been willing, she might have feared no comparison with her maids; for from a merely sensuous standpoint, she would have been reckoned very beautiful.

She had by nature large brown eyes, luxuriant brown hair, and what had been a clear brunette skin, and well-rounded and regular features.

But her lips were curled in hard, haughty lines, her long eyelashes drooped as though she took little interest in life; and, worse than all, to satisfy the demands of fashion, she had bleached her hair to a German blonde, by a process ineffective and injurious.

The lady was just fuming to herself over a gray hair Arsinoe had discovered, and Arsinoe went around in evident fear lest Valeria should vent her vexation on her innocent ministers.
Over in one corner of the room, on a low divan, was sitting a strange-looking personage.

A gaunt, elderly man clothed in a very dingy Greek himation, with shaggy grey hair, and an enormous beard that tumbled far down his breast.