“What’s the matter with your nose?” demanded Mrs Victor. Her own sweet, delicately cut face was flushed with anger, and she sat with stiffened back staring across the fireplace as if demanding compensation for a personal injury.
Pixie sighed, and helped herself to another slice of potato cake.
“It scoops!” she said plaintively. “As you love me, Bridgie, can you deny it scoops?” And as if to illustrate the truth of her words she twisted her head so as to present her little profile for her sister’s inspection.
Truly it was not a classic outline! Sketched in bare outline it would have lacerated an artist’s eye, but then more things than line go to the making up a girlish face: there is youth, for instance, and a blooming complexion; there is vivacity, and sweetness, and an intangible something which for want of a better name we call “charm.” Mrs Victor beheld all these attributes in her sister’s face, and her eyes softened as they looked, but her voice was still resentful.
“Of course it scoops. It always did scoop. I like it to scoop.”
“I like them straight!” persisted Pixie. “And it isn’t as if it stopped at the nose. There’s my mouth—”
Bridgie’s laugh had a tender, reminiscent ring.
“The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky! D’you remember the Major’s old name? He was proud of your mouth. And you had no chin as a child. You ought to be thankful, Pixie, that you’ve grown to a chin!”
“I am,” cried Pixie with unction. “It would be awful to slope down into your neck. All the same, me dear, if it was my eyes that were bigger, and my mouth that was smaller, it would be better for all concerned.” She was silent for some moments, staring thoughtfully in the fire. From time to time she frowned, and from time to time she smiled; Bridgie divined that a thought was working, and lay back in her seat, amusedly watching its development. “There’s a place in Paris,” continued Pixie thoughtfully at last, “an institute sort of place, where they repair noses! You sort of go in, and they look at you, and there are models and drawings, and you choose your nose! The manager is an expert, and if you choose a wrong style he advises, and says another would suit you better. I’d love a Greek one myself; it’s so chic to float down straight from the forehead, but I expect he’d advise a blend that wouldn’t look too épatant with my other features.—It takes a fortnight, and it doesn’t hurt. Your nose is gelatine, not bone; and it costs fifty pounds.”
“Wicked waste!” cried Mrs Victor, with all the fervour of a matron whose own nose is beyond reproach. “Fifty pounds on a nose! I never heard of such foolish extravagance.”