"Hideous," Mina Raff said with a small grimace. She had the strange
ability of catching his unexpressed thoughts and putting them into
words. "Women," she went on, "spend all their money and half their
lives trying to look well, and you'd suppose they would learn
something, but they don't."
"What do women dress for?" he demanded; "is it to make themselves
seductive to men or to have other women admire and envy them?"
"Both," she answered, "but mostly it's a sort of competition with men
for the prize. I'll tell you something about us if you like--we are not
made of sugar and spice and other pleasant bits, but only of two:
prostitute and mother. Not, of course, separately, or in equal parts;
some of us have more of one, others more of the other. That girl across
the table from you is all prostitute, the married woman you were
talking to is both, quite evenly divided; your wife is a mother, even
with her remarkable eyes." She stopped his obvious inquiry:
"I am an artist, and no one has yet discovered what that is. Do you
remember the straw you used to get with a glass of soda water? You see,
often I think I'm like that, a thing for bright colors to pour through.
It's very discouraging. There is Peyton, and he'll want to dance." She
rose, slipping out of her cloak.
Lee Randon saw Fanny not far away, and he dropped into a chair beside
her.
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