"I did, love. The room was an oven, but her rubicund face and
suffocating costume made it seem a furnace."

"Stuff! Well, did you see the lady in the corn-colored silk, and poppies
in her hair?"

"Of course I did. Ceres in person. She made me feel hot, too; but I
cooled myself a bit at her pale, sickly face."

"Never mind their faces; that is not the point."

"Oh, excuse me; it is always a point with us benighted males, all eyes
and no eyes."

"Well, then, the lady in white, with cherry-velvet bands, and a white
tunic looped with crimson, and headdress of white illusion, a la vierge,
I think they call it."

"It was very refreshing; and adapted to that awful atmosphere. It was
the nearest approach to nudity I ever saw, even amongst fashionable
people."

"It was lovely; and then that superb figure in white illusion and gold,
with all those narrow flounces over her slip of white silk glacee, and a
wreath of white flowers, with gold wheat ears amongst them, in her hair;
and oh! oh! oh! her pearls, oriental, and as big as almonds!"

"And oh! oh! oh! her nose! reddish, and as long as a woodcock's."

"Noses! noses! stupid! That is not what strikes you first in a woman
dressed like an angel."

"Well, if you were to run up against that one, as I nearly did, her nose
WOULD be the thing that would strike you first. Nose! it was a rostrum!
the spear-head of Goliah."

"Now, don't, Christopher. This is no laughing matter. Do you mean you
were not ashamed of your wife? I was."

"No, I was not; you had but one rival; a very young lady, wise
before her age; a blonde, with violet eyes. She was dressed in light
mauve-colored silk, without a single flounce, or any other tomfoolery
to fritter away the sheen and color of an exquisite material; her sunny
hair was another wave of color, wreathed with a thin line of white
jessamine flowers closely woven, that scented the air. This girl was the
moon of that assembly, and you were the sun."

"I never even saw her."

"Eyes and no eyes. She saw you, and said, 'Oh, what a beautiful
creature!' for I heard her. As for the old stagers, whom you admire so,
their faces were all clogged with powder, the pores stopped up, the true
texture of the skin abolished. They looked downright nasty, whenever
you or that young girl passed by them. Then it was you saw to what a
frightful extent women are got up in our day, even young women, and
respectable women. No, Rosa, dress can do little for