It was an odor she knew well, exciting, stimulating, restlessly
sweet--the odor of a fashionable dance.
She thought of her own appearance. Her bare arms and shoulders were
powdered to a creamy white. She knew they looked very soft and would
gleam like milk against the black backs that were to silhouette them
to-night. The hairdressing had been a success; her reddish mass of
hair was piled and crushed and creased to an arrogant marvel of mobile
curves. Her lips were finely made of deep carmine; the irises of her
eyes were delicate, breakable blue, like china eyes. She was a
complete, infinitely delicate, quite perfect thing of beauty, flowing
in an even line from a complex coiffure to two small slim feet.
She thought of what she would say to-night at this revel, faintly
prestiged already by the sounds of high and low laughter and slippered
footsteps, and movements of couples up and down the stairs. She would
talk the language she had talked for many years--her line--made up of
the current expressions, bits of journalese and college slang strung
together into an intrinsic whole, careless, faintly provocative,
delicately sentimental. She stalled faintly as she heard a girl
sitting on the stairs near her say: "You don't know the half of it,
dearie!"
And as she smiled her anger melted for a moment, and closing her eyes
she drew in a deep breath of pleasure. She dropped her arms to her
side until they were faintly touching the sleek sheath that covered
and suggested her figure.
Pages:
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107