directions with a curious pettishness, as though they annoyed her; and
presently complained loudly that the chair was uncomfortable, and the
pose irksome. He handled her, however, with a good-humoured mixture of
flattery and persuasion, and at last, stepping back, surveyed the
result--well content.

There was no doubt whatever that she was a very handsome woman, and that
her physical type--that of the more lethargic and heavily built
Neapolitan--suggested very happily the mad and melancholy Queen. She had
superb black hair, eyes profoundly dark, a low and beautiful brow, lips
classically fine, a powerful head and neck, and a complexion which, but
for the treatment given it, would have been of a clear and beautiful
olive. She wore a draggled dress of cream-coloured muslin, very
transparent over the shoulders, somewhat scandalously wanting at the
throat and breast, and very frayed and dirty round the skirt. Her feet,
which were large and plump, were cased in extremely pointed shoes with
large paste buckles; and as she crossed them on the stool provided for
them she showed a considerable amount of rather clumsy ankle. The hands
too were large, common, and ill-kept, and the wrists laden with
bracelets. She was adorned indeed with a great deal of jewellery,
including some startling earrings of a bright green stone. The hat,
which she had carefully placed on a chair beside her, was truly a
monstrosity!--but, as Doris guessed, an expensive monstrosity, such as
the Rue de la Paix provides, at anything from a hundred and fifty to two
hundred and fifty francs, for those of its cosmopolitan customers whom
it pillages and despises. How did the lady afford it? The rest of her
dress suggested a struggle with small means, waged by one who was greedy
for effect, obtained at a minimum of trouble. That she was rouged and
powdered goes without saying.