She proceeded to bedaub her face liberally, and then applied a stick of lip salve to her lips, observing the effect in a small pocket glass, and betraying not the faintest sign of self-consciousness.
“I say,” I hesitated. “I dare say it’s cheek on my part, but why do all that sort of thing?”
The girl paused in her operations, and stared at me with undisguised surprise.
“It isn’t as though you weren’t so pretty that you can afford to do without it,” I said stammeringly.
“My dear boy! I’ve got to do it. All the girls do. Think I want to look like a little frump up from the country?” She took one last look in the mirror, smiled approval, and put it and her vanity-box away in her bag. “That’s better. Keeping up appearances is a bit of a fag, I grant, but if a girl respects herself it’s up to her not to let herself get slack.”
To this essentially moral sentiment, I had no reply. A point of view makes a great difference.
I secured a couple of porters, and we alighted on the platform. My companion held out her hand.
“Good-bye, and I’ll mind my language better in future.”
“Oh, but surely you’ll let me look after you on the boat?”
“Mayn’t be on the boat. I’ve got to see whether that sister of mine got aboard after all anywhere. But thanks all the same.”