He turned his attention to tempting her to extravagance in dress. But
his success there was not all he could have wished. She wore better
clothes--much better. She no longer looked the poor working girl,
struggling desperately to be neat and clean. She had almost immediately
taken on the air of the comfortable classes. But everything she got for
herself was inexpensive and she made dresses for herself, and trimmed
all her hats. With the hats Norman found no fault. There her good taste
produced about as satisfactory results as could have been got at the
fashionable milliners--more satisfactory than are got by the women who
go there, with no taste of their own beyond a hazy idea that they want
"something like what Mrs. So-and-So is wearing." But homemade dresses
were a different matter.
Norman longed to have her in toilettes that would bring out the full
beauty of her marvelous figure. He, after the manner of the more
intelligent and worldly-wise New York men, had some knowledge of
women's clothes. His sister knew how to dress; Josephine knew how,
though her taste was somewhat too sober to suit Norman--at least to suit
him in Dorothy. He thought out and suggested dresses to Dorothy, and
told her where to get them. Dorothy tried to carry out at home such of
his suggestions as pleased her--for, like all women, she believed she
knew how to dress herself. Her handiwork was creditable. It would have
contented a less exacting and less trained taste than Norman's. It would
have contented him had he not been infatuated with her beauty of face
and form. As it was, the improvement in her appearance only served to
intensify his agitation. He now saw in her not only all that had first
conquered him, but also those unsuspected beauties and graces--and
possibilities of beauty and grace yet more entrancing, were she but
dressed properly.
"You don't begin to appreciate how beautiful you are," said he. It had
ever been one of his rules in dealing with women to feed their physical
vanity sparingly and cautiously, lest it should blaze up into one of
those consuming flames that produce a very frenzy of conceit. But this
rule, like all the others, had gone by the board. He could not conceal
his infatuation from her, not even when he saw that it was turning her
head and making his task harder and harder. "If you would only go over
to New York to several dressmakers whose names I'll give you, I know
you'd get clothes from them that you could touch up into something
uncommon."
"I can't afford it," said she. "What I have is good enough--and costs
more than I've the right to pay." And her tone silenced him; it was the
tone of finality, and he had discovered that she had a will.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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