“She will be shortly, Mrs. Haldene.”

Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene passed into the reception-room and sat down by the manicure table.  The screen was in position.  Some one was being beautified.  From time to time she heard voices.

“The make-up is taking splendidly to-day.”

“Well, it didn’t last week.  I sweat pink beads all over my new muslin.”

“It does peel in hot weather.  I understand that Mrs. Welford is going to Dakota.”

“He ought to have the first chance there, if what I’ve heard about her is true.  These society women make me tired.”

“They haven’t much to occupy their time.”

“Oh, I don’t know.  They occupy their time in running around after the other women’s husbands.”

“And the husbands?”

“The other men’s wives.”

“You aren’t very charitable.”

“Nobody’s ever given me any charity, I’m sure.”

From one of the shampooing booths: 

“But you would look very well in the natural grey, ma’am.”

“My husband doesn’t think so.”

“But his hair is grey.”

“That doesn’t lessen his regard for brunettes.”

Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene shrugged her majestic shoulders and gazed again into the street.  She always regretted that Madame could not be induced to make private visits.

A white poodle, recently shampooed, dashed through the rooms.  There is always a watery-eyed, red-lidded poodle in an establishment of this order.  The masculine contempt for the pug has died.  It took twenty years to accomplish these obsequies.  But the poodle, the poor poodle!  Call a man a thief, a wretch, a villain, and he will defend himself; but call him a poodle, and he slinks out of sight.  It is impossible to explain definitely the cause of this supreme contempt for the poodle, nor why it should be considered the epitome of opprobrium to be called one.

“Maime?”

“Yes, Madame!” replied the girl in the hall.

“Take Beauty into the kitchen and close the door.  He’s just been washed, and I don’t want him all speckled up with hair-dye.”

The girl drove the poodle out of the reception-room and caught him in the hall.  Presently the kitchen door slammed and the odor of onions in soup no longer fought against the perfumes and soaps for supremacy.

“There,” said Madame behind the screen, “you have no rival in town now for beauty.”

“I’ll be here again next Tuesday.”

“Same time?”

“Yes, in the morning.”

A woman emerged from behind the screen.  She possessed a bold beauty, the sort that appeals to men without intellect.  She was dressed extravagantly:  too many furbelows, too many jewels, too many flowers.  Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene recognized her instantly and turned her head toward the window.  She heard the woman pass by her, enter the hall and leave the house.  She saw her walk quickly away, stop suddenly as if she had forgotten something, open her large purse, turn its contents inside out, replace them, and proceed.  But a letter lay on the sidewalk unnoticed.  Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene secretly hoped that it would remain there till she made her departure.