her rosebud mouth,
and another on the left-hand side of her tip-tilted nose--marred her baby
face. At the end of another six months the men called her plump, and the
women fat. Her walk was degenerating into a waddle; stairs caused her to
grunt. She took to breathing with her mouth, and Bohemia noticed that
her teeth were small, badly coloured, and uneven. The pimples grew in
size and number. The cream and white of her complexion was merging into
a general yellow. A certain greasiness of skin was manifesting itself.
Babyish ways in connection with a woman who must have weighed about
eleven stone struck Bohemia as incongruous. Her manners, judged alone,
had improved. But they had not improved her. They did not belong to
her; they did not fit her. They sat on her as Sunday broadcloth on a
yokel. She had learned to employ her "h's" correctly, and to speak good
grammar. This gave to her conversation a painfully artificial air. The
little learning she had absorbed was sufficient to bestow upon her an
angry consciousness of her own invincible ignorance.

Meanwhile, Miss Ramsbotham had continued upon her course of rejuvenation.
At twenty-nine she had looked thirty-five; at thirty-two she looked not a
day older than five-and-twenty. Bohemia felt that should she retrograde
further at the same rate she would soon have to shorten her frocks and
let down her hair. A nervous excitability had taken possession of her
that was playing strange freaks not only with her body, but with her
mind. What it gave to the one it seemed to take from the other. Old
friends, accustomed to enjoy with her the luxury of plain speech,
wondered in vain what they had done to offend her. Her desire was now
towards new friends, new faces. Her sense of humour appeared to be
departing from her; it became unsafe to jest with her. On the other
hand, she showed herself greedy for admiration and flattery. Her former
chums stepped back astonished to watch brainless young fops making their
way with her by complimenting her upon her blouse, or whispering to her
some trite nonsense about her eyelashes. From her work she took a good
percentage of her brain power to bestow it on her clothes. Of course,
she was successful. Her dresses suited her, showed her to the best
advantage. Beautiful she could never be, and had sense enough to know
it; but a charming, distinguished-looking woman she had already become.
Also, she was on the high road to beco