It was now some five months since Miss Ruby Miller had taken her in hand, and if the young woman’s bank account was heavier her pride as an artist far outweighed it. Ora’s hair was soft, abundant, the colour of warm ashes. The skin of her face was as white and transparent, as “pearly” to use its doctor’s own descriptive word, as the fine protected surface of her slender throat, her thin but by no means bony neck. Her lips were pink; they never would be red; and after one taste of “lip stick,” Ora had declined to have them improved by art. But they were a soft country-rose pink and suited her clear whiteness far better than scarlet. Her eyes, never so clear and startling as now, lighted up the cold whiteness of her face and made her pink mouth look childish and somewhat pathetic. If her lips had been red, her face would have had the sinister suggestion so many women achieve with the assistance of art; as it was she looked by no means harmless as she smiled at herself in the mirror and coiled her hair softly on the top of her head. After some experimenting she had decided that she could not improve upon an arrangement which for the present at least was all her own. She rang for Custer to hook her gown. It was a very soft gown of white satin draped about the bust with lace and chiffon. It was cut to the waist line in the back and almost as low in front, for her figure was hardly more developed than a growing girl’s; and it was unrelieved by colour. She had already put on the string of pearls her mother had hidden when the other jewels were sold in Paris. Altogether it was a costume she would not have dared to wear even two months ago, when a touch of colour on the bodice or in her hair was necessary to divert attention from her spoiled complexion. Custer had been her mother’s maid for many years and had returned with her to Butte. After an interval of employment elsewhere, she had come to Ora as soon as Mark had built his house. She hooked the gown, pinned up a stray lock with an invisible hairpin, shook out the little train, and stood off. “It reminds me of the way your mother used to look,” she said, “and you’re even prettier than she was, Miss Ora--now. But I fancy you’ll be more comfortable in this gown when you wear it in London. These ladies dress smartly enough, but never as low as the English ladies do, leastways out here. I fancy it’s the Western men. They don’t seem to approve of showing too much.” “Well, I think I’ll rather enjoy startling the natives. Quick--give me my wrap! I hear Mr. Blake coming. No controversy here.” XIX