She was short and fat, with dyed hair.

As a girl she had possibly been pretty in a dimpled, giggling sort of way.

Joan judged her, in spite of her complexion, to be about forty.
Joan wondered if she could be the wife of the Member of Parliament who occupied the rooms below her in Cowley Street.

His name, so the landlady had told her, was Phillips.

She put the suggestion in a whisper to Flossie.
"Quite likely," thought Flossie; "just the type that sort of man does marry.