Her figure, of medium height and broad build, with a tendency to
embonpoint, was reflected by the mirror of her whitewood wardrobe, in
a gown made under her own organization, of one of those half-tints,
reminiscent of the distempered walls of corridors in large hotels. She
raised her hands to her hair, which she wore a la Princesse de Galles,
and touched it here and there, settling it more firmly on her head, and
her eyes were full of an unconscious realism, as though she were looking
in the face one of life's sordid facts, and making the best of it. In
youth her cheeks had been of cream and roses, but they were mottled now
by middle-age, and again that hard, ugly directness came into her eyes
as she dabbed a powder-puff across her forehead. Putting the puff down,
she stood quite still before the glass, arranging a smile over her high,
important nose, her, chin, (never large, and now growing smaller
with the increase of her neck), her thin-lipped, down-drooping mouth.
Quickly, not to lose the effect, she grasped her skirts strongly in both
hands, and went downstairs.
She had been hoping for this visit for some time past. Whispers had
reached her that things were not all right between her nephew and his
fiancee.
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