Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/221

 rouge! My powder! Be quick! The priest is coming. Hasten!

Campaspe found the cosmetics in a dresserdrawer. Again she approached the bedside, but this time she faltered.

Make me up, Campaspe! Make me up! God is sending me a priest, a young, beautiful priest! Make me up!

Campaspe applied the rouge and powder to the wasted cheeks. She touched the brows and lashes with a blue pencil. She painted the lips a deep carmine.

My hair, Campaspe! My hair!

Campaspe combed the thin, white hair, and attempted to arrange it more becomingly.

Flowers, Campaspe! Strew the bed with flowers!

Campaspe cast stalks of fragrant tuberoses on the coverlet. Raising great clusters of white violets in her two hands, she scattered them on the bed.

My mirror! My mirror! With an amazing amount of energy, the Countess sat up again and regarded her reflection in the glass with obvious satisfaction. I am young again, she cried. Am I not young again, Campaspe?

You are marvellous, Campaspe assured her, but after one glance at the wreck before her, gruesome in this ghastly make-up, horrible in its wild expression of forlorn and ungratified lust, she turned her head away.