"Things are always becoming to me," she said quite simply. "But
often I stick a few pins into a dress to tuck it up here and there,
or if I give a hat a poke somewhere to make it crooked, they are
much more becoming. People are always asking me how I do it but
I don't know how. I bought a hat from Cerise last week and I gave
it two little thumps with my fist--one in the crown and one in
the brim and they made it wonderful. The maid of the most grand
kind of person tried to find out from my maid where I bought it.
I wouldn't let her tell of course."

She created fashions and was imitated as was the Head of the House
of Coombe but she was enraptured by the fact and the entire power
of such gray matter as was held by her small brain cells was
concentrated upon her desire to evolve new fantasies and amazements
for her world.

Before he had been married for a year there began to creep into the
mind of Bob Gareth-Lawless a fearsome doubt remotely hinting that
she might end by becoming an awful bore in the course of
time--particularly if she also ended by being less pretty. She
chattered so incessantly about nothing and was such an empty-headed,
extravagant little fool in her insistence on clothes--clothes--clothes--as
if they were the breath of life. After watching her for about two
hours one morning as she sat before her mirror directing her maid
to arrange and re-arrange her hair in different styles--in delicate
puffs and curls and straying rings--soft bands and loops--in braids
and coils--he broke forth into an uneasy short laugh and expressed
himself--though she did not know he was expressing himself and
would not have understood him if she had.