She was quite certain she had been pretty; she saw it in Mr. Briggs's
eyes as clearly as in a looking-glass. For a brief space, she thought,
she had been like a torpid fly brought back to gay buzzing by the
lighting of a fire in a wintry room. She still buzzed, she still
tingled, just at the remembrance. What fun it had been, having an
admirer even for that little while. No wonder people liked admirers.
They seemed, in some strange way, to make one come alive.
Although it was all over she still glowed with it and felt more
exhilarated, more optimistic, more as Lotty probably constantly felt,
than she had done since she was a girl. She dressed with care, though
she knew Mr. Briggs would no longer see her, but it gave her pleasure
to see how pretty, while she was about it, she could make herself look;
and very nearly she stuck a crimson camellia in her hair down by her
ear. She did hold it there for a minute, and it looked almost sinfully
attractive and was exactly the colour of her mouth, but she took it out
again with a smile and a sigh and put it in the proper place for
flowers, which is water. She mustn't be silly, she thought. Think of
the poor. Soon she would be back with them again, and what would a
camellia behind her ear seem like then? Simply fantastic.
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