Yet in spite of all, in the end it's her face which impresses you even more than her figure—which is a real triumph, as the figure is so elaborate and successful. On top of her head is a quite little coil of hair that lifts itself, and spirals up, like a giant snail-shell. A dagger keeps it in place, and looks as if the point plunged into Mrs. Ess Kay's brain, though I suppose it doesn't. Over the forehead is a noble roll which has the effect of a breaker just about to fall into surf, but never falling. It's a black breaker, and the straight, thick eyebrows an inch below it are black too; so are the short eyelashes, also thick and straight, like a stiff fringe, but the eyes are grey—grey as glass, though not transparent. Sometimes they seem almost white, with just a tiny bead of black for the pupil. I never saw anything so hard (except the glass marbles I used to play with): and they look at most people as if something behind them were doing a mental sum in arithmetic, for the Something's own advantage. They don't look at Mother in that way; no eyes in the world would dare; but I'm talking about ordinary people, who are not tall white arum lilies, with the air of having grown in kings' gardens.
Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's nose is well-shaped and rather large; so is her mouth, with a "thin red line" of lips; but somehow it's the chin—the feature you simply take for granted and hardly remember on most faces—which dominates the rest. It comes rounding out under her lips, making them seem to recede, though they don't really; and it's square, with an effect of the skin being laid on over some perfectly hard material, like marble, or the same ivory her teeth are made of. Besides all this,—as if it weren't enough—she's a widow; one of those women who look as if they had been born widows; anyway, I'm certain that Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox can never have been a child.
Sally Woodburn's chin is rather full, too. I wonder if, in spite of her lazy ways, and slow, soft speech, she is very decided, like her cousin, who is so much older and bigger, and apparently able to make the gentle little Southern relative do as she wills?
Mrs. Ess Kay, terribly glittering this evening in a gown contrasting strongly with our simple things, was almost too nice to me, saying several times over how glad she was that I was going to visit her. At dinner, she painted word-pictures of the "good times" she would give me, and though I've never been able to care for her, and don't a bit more now, I began to be rather excited by her talk, for she made things seem so interesting and new. Besides, it appears that Sally Woodburn will be at Newport most of the summer, so I shall have her to fall back upon.
As for me, I was good as gold, and Vic threw me approving glances, for which I was grateful, for I like being in Vic's good graces. She doesn't often bother with me much, but when she does, she is so sweet it makes up for everything—and she knows that well.
I could hardly wait to hear her "explanations," and so I was glad Mrs. Ess Kay and Miss Woodburn were hypnotised by Mother into thinking they wanted to go early to bed. Mother is very clever about such things.
She didn't come again to talk to me in my room; I suppose she thought it best to let the new ideas simmer. Anyhow, she sent Thompson away, and shut the door between Vic's room and hers sooner than usual. Presently Vic slipped quietly in to me, in the new blue dressing-gown which was to have been mine, only when she saw it finished, she wanted it, and had four inches taken up above the hem.
"Well, how are you feeling about things now?" she asked, sitting down in front of the mirror, with her hairbrush in her hand.
"I'll tell you after you've told me why I ought to feel one way more than another," I said with prudent reserve.
"Then, like a good child, brush my hair. I wouldn't let Thompson do anything, because I knew you'd be dying to have me, and I can talk so beautifully while my hair is being done. It makes me wish I were a pussy cat, so that I could purr."