om an
anxious forehead surmounted with a coiffure of elaborately and smoothly
arranged hair. She saw indisputable evidence that she had ceased to be
the ethically attractive, but modishly unsophisticated and physically
undeveloped girl, who had come to New York five years before, for her
figure was compact without being unduly plump, her cheeks becomingly
oval, and her toilette stylish. There were rings on her fingers, and her
neck-gear was smart. Altogether the vision was satisfactory, yet she
recognized as she gazed that her appearance and general effect were not
precisely those of Flossy, Pauline, or Mrs. Hallett Taylor. She had
always prided herself on the distinction of her face, and admired
especially its freedom from gross or unintellectual lines. She did not
intend to question its superiority now; but Flossy's offensive words
rang in her ears and caused her to gnaw her lips with annoyance. What
was the difference between them? Flossy had dared to call her common and
superficial; had dared to insinuate that she never could be a lady. A
lady? What was there in her appearance not lady-like? In what way was
she the inferior of any of them in beauty, intelligence or character?
Rigorous as was the scrutiny, the face in the mirror seemed to her an
unanswerable refutation of the slander. What was the difference? Was it
that her eyes were keener and brighter, her lips thinner and less
fleshly, her general expression more wide-awake and self-reliant? If so,
were these not signs of superiority; signs that they, not she, were
deficient in the attributes of the best modern womanhood in spite of
their affectation of exclusiveness?

The result of this process of self-examination in her looking-glass,
which was not limited to a single occasion, established more firmly than
ever in Selma's opinion the malignant falsity of the imputation, and yet
she was still haunted by it. She was tortured by the secret thought
that, though her ambition had been to become just like those other
women, she was still distinguishable from them; and moreover, that she
was baffled in her attempt to analyze the distinction. Distinguishable
even from Flossy--from Flossy, who had slighted and then reviled her!
Why had she ever faltered in her distrust of these enemies of true
American society? Yet this lingering sense of torture served to whet her
new-found purpose to have done with them forever, and to obtain the
recognition and power to which she was