"Alone? No, dear," shaking her head a little as at the regrettable, but to be expected frailties of men. "He was not alone. He was driving the car, it seems, with a beautiful young actress by his side. She must be a very--er--persuasive person, too, because the papers said that she is to appear here this spring in some superb production or other, and they strongly insinuated that Cress' money is behind the whole thing. But you see, that, as I said, there's nothing in it all, nothing really to worry over." "I see," said Dita, but slowly and without enthusiasm. "And now, my dear," Mrs. Hewston had suddenly grown quite brisk, "let's forget all this and talk of something that is more interesting to you, because it's in your line. Perdita," in her most wheedling and cooing tones, "I want you to make me lovely." "You are lovely, Mrs. Hewston." "Oh, in a middle-aged, broad, pink kind of way, but I want you to make me look slender and lissome and girlish without all this awful dieting and exercise and these dreadfully tight corsets that make one feel as if one were nothing more nor less than blanc-mange in a tin mold. And you know you do come out of them with your flesh all fluted, just like the blanc-mange when it's set." "You shall be quite lissome, I promise you that," said Dita consolingly, if rather absently. "Come to me again early next week and I shall have some designs for you to consider, beautiful, long folds and all that. But I can't perform miracles, you know, and you'll have to diet a little and exercise; yes, and wear the boned corset; you don't want to look like a--" "Do not say it!" cried Mrs. Hewston nervously. "I am sure you are going to say either 'whale' or 'tub,' and I can't stand it. That's what those awful corsettieres always say when I protest the least bit against their tortures. "And Perdita, one thing more--my chin. I always say the chin is the greatest give-away a woman's got. She can get around anything else, but, no matter what she does, that chin sticks out like a cliff and reveals every year she's lived. Of course, you may try to draw off attention with a diamond dog collar or jeweled black velvets, but at the best they're only poor, miserable makeshifts; and one must wear evening dress no matter whether one has rolls of flesh or a gridiron of bones. If you don't, people either think you come from the woods or have something worse than bones or superfluous flesh to conceal. Just look at Willoughby!" Mrs. Hewston's emotions overcame her here and she dabbed her eyes carefully with her handkerchief. "He is fat as a pig. He shuffles and hobbles about with the gout. He eats anything he pleases, and never thinks of cultivating a pleasant expression. Yet if I should die, he could marry again without difficulty. Oh, it's a hard world for us women! But really, I must go, dear. Just look out and see if you see Willoughby by chance, either up or down the street."