So she rubs her cheeks and puts more powder on them. The rubbing makes her cheeks so red that she has to subdue the colour. She works and works, and now takes it into her head that, being warm, her nose must be shining.
She takes the puff and puts powder on it. An hour before she was a woman who, in your eyes at all events, could not very well be improved.
Now she is ready, and emerges from her apartment. Her hair is undone behind and ruffed in front, her hat is too straight, and her face looks made-up. The rubbing has changed her lovely pink complexion into a sort of theatrical purple red.
You feel for her, because, being very proud of her complexion, you do not want your friends—you do not want anybody—to say: 'Oh, she is made-up.' And you own that she looks it, and altogether she does not look half so well as she did when she had finished dressing, and had not begun the finishing touches.
Beware, ladies! Many a most beautiful woman has been spoiled by the finishing touches.
CHAPTER IV
THE SELFISHNESS OF SORROW
Real sorrow is no more expressed by the correctness of a mourning attire and the despair written on a face than true religious fervour is expressed by the grimaces that are made at prayer-time.