wished he had asked other people instead.

When Edith was dressed Bruce put the last touch to his irritating
caprices by asking Edith to take out of her hair a bandeau of blue that
he had first asked her to put in. Every woman will know what agony that
must have caused. The pretty fair hair was waved and arranged specially
for this ornament, and when she took it out the whole scheme seemed to
her wrong. However, she looked very pretty, dressed in vaporous tulle of
a shade of blue which only a faultless complexion can bear.

Edith's complexion was her strong point. When she was a little flushed
she looked all the better for it, and when she was pale it seemed to
suit her none the worse. Hers was the sort of skin with a satiny texture
that improves under bright sunshine or electric light; in fact the more
brilliantly it was lighted the better it looked.

Madame Frabelle (of course) was dressed in black, _decolletee,_ and with
a good deal of jet. A black aigrette, like a lightning conductor, stood
up defiantly in her hair. Though it did not harmonise well with the
somewhat square and _bourgeois_ shape of her head and face, and
appeared to have dropped on her by accident, yet as a symbol of
smartness it gave her a kind of distinction. It appeared to have fallen
from the skies; it was put on in the wrong place, and it did not nestle,
as it should do, and appear to grow out of the hair, since that glory of
womanhood, in her case of a dull brown, going slightly grey, was smooth,
scarce and plainly parted. Madame Frabelle really would have looked her
best in a cap of the fashion of the sixties. But she could carry off
anything; and some people said that she did.

Edith had been allowed by her husband _carte blanche_ in the decoration