“And you must get him back again,” said Madame Florence in sharp staccato accents. “You are a good-looking woman, a little stout, but that can be got rid of by judicious means.”
“I have taken means; I have just bought some of Madame Winifred Polson’s little brown tablets.”
“Two guineas’ worth?”
“Yes.”
“I would not take them if I were you. They will eat away the lining of your stomach, they will make you dyspeptic, they will perforate your bowels and do all sorts of horrible things. They are made of iodine and sea wrack. Put them into the fire, my dear lady.”
“But I paid two guineas for them,” said Regina.
Madame Florence laughed. “Well, take them home with you if you like, and look at them occasionally and say ‘These cost me two guineas,’ but don’t take them. If you want to get thin, go to a medical man who thoroughly understands the science of food and fat—or fat and food.”
“Are there such people?”
“Oh yes. You say you like simple diet, and take all sorts of starchy foods and think that makes your skin fine and clear. My dear lady, it is not the milky foods you take, the bread and butter and cream and the extra two lumps of sugar in your tea that make your skin fine and clear; it is simply that you were born with a fine skin, and have been doing everything you could to ruin it during the whole of your life.”
“You think that under diet my skin will regain its normal beauty?”