Anyway, he is all right, having a good time. Why isn't he sick, too?
For six or seven days, that bright American woman, who runs household, husband, children, and servants with one glance of the eye, is at the mercy of everyone who belongs to her, suffering agonies, tortures of body and mind, and you would imagine that a boat sees her on the Atlantic for the last time.
You would think that all the beauties of American scenery, its seashores, lakes, and mountains, will attract her next season. Not a bit of it. In order to be seen at the dreary funereal functions of Mayfair and Belgravia, she will cross again. She goes where duty calls her. She has to be 'in it' first, in the hope of soon being 'of it.'
And, in order to secure her social standing on a sure basis, twice a year she will pack her belongings and suffer death agonies. The pluck and power of endurance of women is perfectly prodigious.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SECRET OF WOMAN'S BEAUTY
The secret of a woman's beauty is not to be discovered in her dressing-room, as cynics might intimate; it is not obtained by the use of cosmetics, pomade, magic waters, and ointments; by the application of red, white, and black, neither by painting nor dyeing; the real secret of woman's beauty lies in resplendent health and a cheerful mind.
It was only a few days ago that I said to a lady, an intimate friend of mine, who has just been promoted to the dignity of a grandmother: 'Won't you make up your mind one of these days to look over thirty years of age?' My lady friend is very beautiful, and she knows it; but she carries her beauty without any affectation and bumptiousness.