Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/223

 for half an hour, Marjorie went to the drug store described to her.

It was, as are most of the extraordinary establishments which we still call drug stores, an emporium for a multitude of wares far more conspicuous than medicines and to-day the most conspicuous, beyond any rivalry, was face powder. For, in a sort of booth, arranged just within a front window, a dark-haired, handsome girl, with a remarkably well developed figure displayed in a tight, black, knitted dress, was "demonstrating."

When Marjorie had worked her way into the circle about the window, she looked at the girl before paying attention to what she was doing. She had such marvelous hair, for one attraction; black, it was, of the most living, healthy hues of black Marjorie had ever seen; her brows were as black as her long, beautiful lashes. Her eyes, too, seemed black before she looked up; but that was because the pupils were large; now they contracted and Marjorie saw the iris was of the clearest and warmest and softest of browns. Her skin was smooth and soft-looking and clear and dark, where she had left it free from powder; she was an Italian, Marjorie thought at this first glance at her; for she had the almost perfect symmetry of oval face and the delicate bowing of full-blooded lips which one sees in a beautiful Italian girl. But she was taller than an Italian was likely to be and, in the breadth of her cheek bones and also in her shoulders, were marks of a larger race; and her manner did not make Marjorie class her with Italians. She had a bold, easy-going, amused air which the crowd found attractive as they watched her polish her perfect, oval nails with paste from a pink box; from an elaborate jar she scooped cold cream to