XIV
“NOW I’ve got you where I want you, and I’m goin’ to talk—goin’ to say something I’ve been dyin’ to say for two or three years.”
Ora’s head was in the wash-basin. Miss Miller was leisurely spraying out the lime juice with which she had drenched her hair. Ora gasped, then gurgled something unintelligible, which Miss Ruby interpreted as encouragement to proceed. Mrs. Blake’s manner ever since the hairdresser’s arrival had been uncommonly winning, with something half-appealing, half-confiding that flew straight not only to that experienced young woman’s sympathies but to her professional instinct.
“It’s this,” she continued. “You need a thorough overhauling. In these days, particularly in this altitude, women take care of themselves as they go along, but you don’t. You’ve lost your complexion ridin’ and walkin’ for hours without a veil, sometimes without a hat, and you with a delicate skin like a baby’s and not even using creams. I heard a man say only last Sunday—I was givin’ his wife a facial and he was sittin’ round—that it was an awful pity you had gone off so, as you were the prettiest thing he ever laid eyes on when you came back after your pa’s death, and if Mark—Mr. Blake—hadn’t snapped you up before any other young man got a look at you you’d have had a dozen chances, for all you’ve got such a reputation for brains. ‘A man can stand brains in a white lily of a girl,’ says he, ‘but when she gets older she’s either got to keep her complexion or cut out the brains, and Ora Blake’s done neither’—Say if you squirm like that you’ll get your mouth and eyes full of lemon. His wife said she didn’t believe men cared for them thin white women anyway—she’s bustin’ with health herself—and he gave a grunt that means a lot to a girl who knows men like I do. You never did make anything of yourself and you’ve let yourself go these last two or three yearssomething shameful. If you’d take yourself in hand, get on to yourself once for all, you’d have people twistin’ their necks off to look at you and callin’ you a Mariposa lily, or a Princess Pine, or a White Gladiolus and other poetry names like that. And you could get the reputation of a beauty all right. It makes me sick.”
“Could you make me into a beauty?” Ora’s voice was remarkably languid considering the flaming hue of her face, which, however, may have been due to its prolonged sojourn in the wash-basin. Miss Miller had wrung her hair out and was rubbing it vigorously.
“Couldn’t Ijust?”
As Mrs. Blake maintained a dignified silence, Miss Ruby proceeded to develop her theme. “Now, your hair, for instance. That’s the reason I used lemon today. You’ve been usin’ soap, and, what with this dry climate, and no care, it’s as harsh and broken as if you’d been usin’ soda on it every day. It’s lemon and hot water for you, first, last and always, and eggs after a journey. It needs a couple of months of hand-massage every other day right now; after that it will be up to you. Brush it night and morning and use a tonic twice a year.”
She paused and Ora waited with eyes closed to conceal her impatience. Finally she opened them irresistibly and met Miss Ruby’s in the mirror. They, too, looked embarrassed. Ora’s smile was spontaneous and sweet and not too frequent. It seldom failed to melt reserve and inspire confidence. She played this card without delay.
“Why don’t you go on?” she asked. “All that is most interesting and valuable. I shall remember every word of it.”
“Well—I was afraid that what I want to say most might sound as if I was drummin’ up trade, and the Lord knows I’ve got more to do than I could manage if there was ten days in every week. I turned down two ladies today to come here. I never shampoo the day of a ball.”
“My dear Miss Miller! You are an artist, and like all artists, you not only aim at perfection yourself but your eyes and fingers ache at imperfection. I suppose an author rewrites sentences as he reads them, and painters must long to repaint every picture they see. As for you—we are your page and canvas, and naturally we have the good fortune to interest you.”
“That’s it!” cried Miss Ruby, glowing. “That’s the size of it, only I couldn’t ever say it like that. Well, now, if you want this skin to look like a complexion and not like a hide, I’ve got to give you a massage every third day for quite a while. It not only needs creams and cold applications—hot only once in a while—but an awful lot of hand massage. It’s all run down and needs stimulating the worst way. Another year and you’d be havin’ lines. You can’t leave yourself to nature up here. She’s in too great a hurry to take back what she gave. And you must cut out hot breads and trash and wear a veil when you go out in the sun and wind. And you go to Boulder Springs once a week and take a vapour bath.”
“But I’ll always look washed-out.”
“Not if you look fresh, and wear colours that suit you.”
“And I never was called a beauty. That man, whoever he was, merely remembered the usual prettiness of youth. Every young girl is pretty unless she is ugly.”
“Well, I guess you didn’t take enough pains to make people think you were a beauty. Some—Ida Compton, for instance—don’t need to do anything but just show themselves. Any fool—particularly a man—can see black hair and red and white skin, and meltin’ eyes, and lashes a yard long, and a dashin’ figure. But odd and refined types like you—well, you’ve got to help it out.”
“How very interesting! Do you mean I must go about telling people that I am really beautiful, if they will only look at me long enough? Or—possibly—do you mean that I should make up?”
“I don’t mean either, ’though in a way I mean both. In the first place you’ve got to make the most of your points. You’re not a red blonde or a gold blonde, but what the French call sendray; in plain English, you’ve got ash-coloured hair. Now, that makes the blondest kind of blonde, but at the same time it’s not so common, and nature has to give it to you. Art can’t. What you want to do is to let people see that your colouring is so rare that you can’t get enough of it yourself, and by and by people will think they can’t either. You’ve been wearin’ all this hair twisted into a hard knot down on your neck. That don’t show off the hair and don’t suit your face, which is kinder square. I’m goin’ to pull it soft about your face and ears and then coil it softly on top of yourhead. That’ll give length to your face, and look as if you was proud of your hair—which you will be in a month or two. You mustn’t pay too much attention to the style of the moment. You’re the sort to have a style of your own and stick to it.”
“I’m in your hands,” murmured Ora. “What next?”
“Did you really lose interest in yourself?” asked Miss Miller curiously, and with the fine freedom of the West from class restraint. “Or didn’t you ever have any?”
“A little of both. When I was a girl I was a frightful pedant—and—Oh, well—Butte is not Europe, and I took refuge more than ever in books, particularly as I could have nothing of the other arts. You know the resources of Butte!”
“I’m glad you’re goin’ to Europe again, where I guess all kinds of variety are on tap.—Say, perhaps you’ll find out all the new kinks for the complexion in Paris, and tell me when you come back.”
“I will indeed!”
“I don’t hold to rippin’ the skin off, or hoistin’ it up,” said Miss Miller firmly. “All any skin needs is steady treatment, and constant care—constant, mind you, and never forget it. Now there’s your profile. It’s grand. The way I’m goin’ to fix your hair’ll show it off, and don’t you let it get scooped round the eyes, like so many women do. Massage’ll prevent that. I wish your eyebrows and lashes was black, like so many heroines in novels has. The contrast would be fine. But brown’ll do, and I guess the natural is your lay. Luckily them black grey eyes is a high note, and when you get your lips real red, you’ll have all the colour your style can carry. The gleamin’ white skin’ll do the rest.”
“How am I to get red lips, and what’s to make my skin gleam?”
“You’re anæmic. You go to a doctor and get a tonic right off. When I get through with your complexion it’ll gleam all right. No powder for you. It improves most women, but you want high lights. I don’t mean shine when I say gleam, either. I mean that you’ve got the kind of skin that when the tan’s off and it’s toned up and is in perfect condition (you’ve got to be that inside, too), sheds a sort of white light. It’s the rarest kind, and I guess it does the most damage.”
“And what good is all this beautifying to do me? And why make me dangerous? Surely you are not counselling that I begin a predatory raid on other women’s husbands, or even on the ‘brownies’?”
“Well, I guess not. I don’t approve of married women lettin’ men make love to them, but I do believe in a woman makin’ the most of herself and gettin’ all the admiration that’s comin’ to her. If you can be a beauty, for the Lord Almighty’s sake be one. Believe me, it’ll make life seem as if it had a lot more to it.”
“I shouldn’t wonder!”
“And you go in right off for deep breathin’ and Swedish exercises night and mornin’. It’s the style to be thin, but you want to develop yourself more. And they keep you limber—don’t forget that. When a woman stiffens up she’s done for. Might as well get fat round her waist. Now shut your eyes, I’m goin’ to massage.”