But this consideration could
not weigh with Edith, and its effect on Bruce must have long passed
away. Madame Frabelle accepted the invitation as a matter of course,
made use of it as a matter of convenience, and had remained ever since,
showing no sign of leaving. Edith was deeply interested in her.
* * * * *
And Bruce was more genuinely impressed and unconsciously bored by Madame
Frabelle than by any woman he had ever met. Yet she was not at all
extraordinary. She was a tall woman of about fifty, well bred without
being distinguished, who could never have been handsome but was
graceful, dignified, and pleasing. She was neither dark nor fair. She
had a broad, good-natured face, and a pale, clear complexion. She was
inclined to be fat; not locally, in the manner of a pincushion, but with
the generally diffused plumpness described in shops as stock size. She
was not the sort of modern woman of fifty, with a thin figure and a good
deal of rouge, who looks young from the back when dancing or walking,
and talks volubly and confidentially of her young men. She had, of
course, nothing of the middle-aged woman of the past, who at her age
would have been definitely on the shelf, doing wool-work or collecting
recipes there.
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