“A neat pompadour, with an empire knot, would make an up-to-date etching of you.”
Then she caught her by the shoulder and pulled her up in front of a mirror, snuggling her own face down beside Elvira’s. “Look there—I’ve a mind to pinch you; you’re three years older than I. What do you mean by looking at least eight younger, and just like a big peach, at that—hey?”
“Maybe it’s because I don’t frazzle up years of good vitality over little everyday snarls,” Elvira replied, serenely, but added, more meekly, “I’ve been very near to it lately, though, with Eulalie and her young men.”
“Eulalie—yes; she ought to be cuffed a time or two; I know her. Look here, Elv, you’ve simply got to let me fix you a pompadour and have your seams made straight. You’d have a presence to eclipse us all if you’d spunk up to your dressmaker and not let her put off crooked gores on you. I’m going to fix you.”
“I thought I came here to nurse you.”
“Oh, well, you can coddle me sometimes, when I think I’m getting yellow and peaked. But it’s a whole lot of potions and powders just to have you here. All the same, I had another little nail to drive in importing you. I’ve got an old boy picked out—the baron we call him. He’s a worthy soul—upright and straight walking as you please, so it needn’t be any obstacle to you that he owns a whole bunch of mills a few miles out. He isn’t here now, but soon will be, looking after the mills, and you’ve got to see him. He’s quite a bit older than you, but that’s no odds. His name is Courtenay——”
“Erastus?”
“How did you come by it so glibly?”
“One of Eulalie’s planets has an uncle named that. He brought him to the house a few times, to brighten up my desert island.”
“Oh, sweet innocence! So you know him! Then the romance is already cut and basted.”