evel across her
forehead. With the large white hat she wore a low evening-dress,
lace-covered, with loose sleeves to the elbow, and white gloves running
up into the mystery of the sleeves. Round her neck was a tight string of
pearls. The combination of the hat and the evening-dress startled Henry,
but he saw in the theatre many other women similarly contemptuous of the
English code, and came to the conclusion that, though queer and
un-English, the French custom had its points. Cosette's complexion was
even more audacious in its contempt of Henry's deepest English
convictions. Her lips were most obviously painted, and her eyebrows had
received some assistance, and once, in a manner absolutely ingenuous,
she produced a little bag and gazed at herself in a little mirror, and
patted her chin with a little puff, and then smiled happily at Henry.
Yes, and Henry approved. He was forced to approve, forced to admit the
artificial and decadent but indubitable charm of paint and powder. The
contrast between Cosette's lips and her brilliant teeth was utterly
bewitching.

She was not beautiful. In facial looks, she was simply not in the same
class with Geraldine. And as to intellect, also, Geraldine was an easy
first.

But in all other things, in the things that really mattered (such was
the dim thought at the back of Henry's mind), she was to Geraldine what
Geraldine was to Aunt Annie. Her gown was a miracle, her hat was
another, and her coiffure a third. And when she removed a glove--her
rings, and her finger-nails! And the glimpses of her shoes! She was so
_finished_. And in the way of being frankly feminine, Geraldine might go
to school to her. Geraldine had brains and did not hide them; Geraldine
used the weapon of seriousness. But Cosette knew better than that.
Cosette could surround you with a something, an emanation of all the
woman in her, that was more efficient to enchant than the brains of a
Georges Sand could have been.

And Paris, or that part of the city which constitutes Paris for the
average healthy Englishman, was an open book to this woman of
twenty-four. Nothing was hid from her. Nothing startled her, nothing
seemed unusual to her. Nothing shocked her except Henry's ignorance of
all the most interesting things in the world.

'Well, what do you think of a French "revue," my son?' asked Tom when he
returned with Loulou.

'Don't know,' said Henry, with his gibus tipped a little backward.
'Haven't seen it. We'