"
This time Nana did not turn round. She had taken up the hare's-foot and
was lightly manipulating it. All her attention was concentrated on this
action, and she bent forward over her toilet table so very far that the
white round contour of her drawers and the little patch of chemise stood
out with the unwonted tension. But she was anxious to prove that
she appreciated the old man's compliment and therefore made a little
swinging movement with her hips.
Silence reigned. Mme Jules had noticed a tear in the right leg of her
drawers. She took a pin from over her heart and for a second or so knelt
on the ground, busily at work about Nana's leg, while the young woman,
without seeming to notice her presence, applied the rice powder, taking
extreme pains as she did so, to avoid putting any on the upper part of
her cheeks. But when the prince remarked that if she were to come
and sing in London all England would want to applaud her, she laughed
amiably and turned round for a moment with her left cheek looking very
white amid a perfect cloud of powder. Then she became suddenly serious,
for she had come to the operation of rouging. And with her face once
more close to the mirror, she dipped her finger in a jar and began
applying the rouge below her eyes and gently spreading it back toward
her temples.
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