"Mine's long enough, but I do it religiously every fortnight. Pays me," said Miss Long candidly as she went on working. "Untidy it may be, but it does feel and smell all right. One of my medical students at the hospital where I trained for five minutes--the boy Monty, the Dean's son--_he_ said once that the scent of my hair was like cherry-wood. 'Course I didn't confide in _him_ that I watered it well with bay rum and rosemary every night. Better than being like Miss Armitage, the suffragette-woman here, who's so nice-minded that she's 'above' pampering the body. What's the consequence? She, and half the girls here, go about smelling--to put it plainly--like cold grease and goloshes! Can they wonder that men don't seem to think they'd be--be very nice to marry?"
"Some suffragettes, and sort of brainy women," hesitated Gwenna, "are married."
"Yes; and _have_ you observed the usual type of their husbands?" scoffed Leslie. "Eugh!"
Gwenna, set upon her own subject, drew her back with innocent directness to the matter in hand.
"What else ought one to do? Besides lots of washing, besides taking care of one's hair and skin?"
"One's shape, of course," mused Leslie. "There you're all right. Thank goodness--_and me_--that you've left off those weird, those unearthly stays you came up to town in. My dear, they were like a hamper strapped round the middle of you and sending your shoulders up, squared, into your ears! You've got a pretty slope there now, besides setting free all your 'lines.' I suppose elastic has pretty well solved the great corset question at last."
"Thirty shillings was a dreat-ful lot to give for just an elastic belt," murmured Gwenna, with her little hand at her supple waist. "Still, you said I must, even if I didn't have a new blouse over it for eighteen months." Again she looked up for guidance. "What else? What's a good _thing_, Leslie? About clothes and that?"
"Oh, child, you know it all now, practically. Let's see--shoes"--she glanced at the tiny brown one half-tucked under Gwenna's knee. "_Boots and shoes_ men seem to notice as much as any other part of your get-up. Attractive shoes, even with an unfashionable skirt, will pull you through, when shabby shoes would ruin the look of the smartest rig. They see that, even when they've no idea what colour you've got on."