“Every woman must!”
“But the more she felt it, the more she seemed to expand.... Grief runs to fat, I do believe,” said the Duchess. “Of course, Poppa’s allowance to Momma being liber’l—even for a Corn King—she had unlimited funds at her disposal. To begin with, she rented a medical specialist.”
“Who dieted her?”
“My dear, for a woman accustomed to French cookery, and with the national predilection for cookies and candy, it must have been——”
“Torture!”
“One gluten biscuit and the eye of a mutton cutlet for dinner. Think of it! Beef-juice and dry toast for breakfast, ditto for supper. And she used to skip—a woman of that size, too—for hours! And her trainers came every morning at five o’clock, and they’d make her just put on a sweater and take her between them for a sharp trot round Central Park, just as if she’d been a gentleman jockey sworn to ride at so many stone for a Plate. And the number of stone Momma got off——”
“She got them off?”
“I guess she got them off,” said the Duchess. “Poppa talked of having an elegant tombstone set up in Central Park to commemorate the greater portion of a wife buried there! then he gave up the notion. And then Momma made handsome presents to her specialist and her trainers, and contracted with the cleverest operator in N’York to make a face.”
“To make a face?” repeated Lady Sidonia.
“To make a face for Momma that matched her youthful figure,” said the Duchess composedly. “My! the time that man took in creating a surface to work on! She slept for a fortnight with her countenance covered with slices of raw veal.”