you"—"Erase those hateful lines around eyes and mouth"—"Complexions youthified." They said you could work this magic with a home-treatment box—balsam astringents, satiny water-lily creams, geranium-petal rouges. Of course I wouldn't use rouge, she thought. But it wouldn't hurt to try the other things. I needn't tell anyone.
Oh, but what was the use? Life was over for her, now, and her heart was broken.
But it couldn't be true. From Monday until Thursday was too short a time to work such destruction. If only they hadn't sent Joe to New York! If only they'd waited until this week! If only he'd looked up that man on Tuesday instead of Monday! If only there had never been a war! If only
She thought piteously that if she did not remind him of what he never forgot he would get over this delusion.
"Of course, not seeing her, he can keep his ideals about her," she explained to Carrie. "She's just a sort of dream girl to him now, and I'm afraid he's going to have a sad awakening if he sees her again. Well, I'm not taking it very seriously."
But tears came often, no matter how hard she tried to make it true that nothing had happened, by pretending.
I really believe my heart is broken, she thought, running her needle in and out of the strands of wool across her darning egg. How does Joe get such holes in his
