Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/98

 was such a small thing that kindled this great flame—the fact that Mr. Winnery had looked upon her as if she were a woman. She had not actually seen him do it. She had felt him looking at her while Aunt Henrietta was telling that interminable and inaccurate story of the villa. She was aware that in the look there was admiration, perhaps even desire. It was years since such a thing had happened to her. Not since that organist at the Bahai Temple. . ..

Above Mrs. Weatherby's grey head she saw her own reflection in the mirror and she noticed presently many things that she had forgotten to notice for a long time past—that she had pretty hair, smooth and shiny and still a mousey brown, that her eyes were blue and attractive and that her nose was red and shiny. She thought, "I will buy powder the next time I go to Brinoë, and I will use it whether she likes it or not." (She had suddenly ceased thinking of Mrs. Weatherby as Aunt Henrietta but merely as she.) Miss Fosdick even wondered if her hair would be becoming cut short like the Principessa's flaming locks. "No," she told herself, "I am too fat. I must try to lose weight. I must write for one of those diets advertised in the Ladies' Own World." Having been born with a fine high color which needed only toning down, she had no need of rouge. "Still," she thought giddily, "a touch on the lips—just a touch."

Mrs. Weatherby interrupted her. "Don't pull so hard. You know how it affects my nerves."

Miss Fosdick had a wild impulse to say "Humph" and, giving the grey hair a good pull, to throw the