Gigolo by Edna Ferber Chapter 4 Page 26

her mind and slammed the door on it — on that hideous number beginning with f. At such times she was given to contemplation of her own photographs — and was reassured. Her intelligence told her that retouching varnish, pumice stone, hard pencil, and etching knife had all gone into the photographer’s version of this clear-eyed, fresh-lipped blooming creature gazing back at her so limpidly. But, then, who didn’t need a lot of retouching? Even the youngest of them.

All this. Yet she loved it. The very routine of it appealed to her orderly nature: a routine that, were it widely known, would shatter all those ideas about the large, loose life of the actress. Harrietta Fuller liked to know that at such and such an hour she would be in her dressing room; at such and such an hour on the stage; precisely at