“Well, I guess you didn’t take enough pains to make people think you were a beauty. Some—Ida Compton, for instance—don’t need to do anything but just show themselves. Any fool—particularly a man—can see black hair and red and white skin, and meltin’ eyes, and lashes a yard long, and a dashin’ figure. But odd and refined types like you—well, you’ve got to help it out.”
“How very interesting! Do you mean I must go about telling people that I am really beautiful, if they will only look at me long enough? Or—possibly—do you mean that I should make up?”
“I don’t mean either, ’though in a way I mean both. In the first place you’ve got to make the most of your points. You’re not a red blonde or a gold blonde, but what the French call sendray; in plain English, you’ve got ash-coloured hair. Now, that makes the blondest kind of blonde, but at the same time it’s not so common, and nature has to give it to you. Art can’t. What you want to do is to let people see that your colouring is so rare that you can’t get enough of it yourself, and by and by people will think they can’t either. You’ve been wearin’ all this hair twisted into a hard knot down on your neck. That don’t show off the hair and don’t suit your face, which is kinder square. I’m goin’ to pull it soft about your face and ears and then coil it softly on top of your head. That’ll give length to your face, and look as if you was proud of your hair—which you will be in a month or two. You mustn’t pay too much attention to the style of the moment. You’re the sort to have a style of your own and stick to it.”
“I’m in your hands,” murmured Ora. “What next?”
“Did you really lose interest in yourself?” asked Miss Miller curiously, and with the fine freedom of the West from class restraint. “Or didn’t you ever have any?”
“A little of both. When I was a girl I was a frightful pedant—and—Oh, well—Butte is not Europe, and I took refuge more than ever in books, particularly as I could have nothing of the other arts. You know the resources of Butte!”
“I’m glad you’re goin’ to Europe again, where I guess all kinds of variety are on tap.—Say, perhaps you’ll find out all the new kinks for the complexion in Paris, and tell me when you come back.”
“I will indeed!”
“I don’t hold to rippin’ the skin off, or hoistin’ it up,” said Miss Miller firmly. “All any skin needs is steady treatment, and constant care—constant, mind you, and never forget it. Now there’s your profile. It’s grand. The way I’m goin’ to fix your hair’ll show it off, and don’t you let it get scooped round the eyes, like so many women do. Massage’ll prevent that. I wish your eyebrows and lashes was black, like so many heroines in novels has. The contrast would be fine. But brown’ll do, and I guess the natural is your lay. Luckily them black grey eyes is a high note, and when you get your lips real red, you’ll have all the colour your style can carry. The gleamin’ white skin’ll do the rest.”
“How am I to get red lips, and what’s to make my skin gleam?”