What was she like? I knew a girl named Maud once, she had half a lip. She used to like to make out that the other half had been lost in a fight; I knew for a fact, however, she had been born like that, she couldn''t fight putty. She died in the end—not from fighting, but through eating bad meat. Just one bit of bad meat killed her, just like that.
But, she was very dark. Gentleman had said that the other Maud, his Maud, was fair and rather handsome. But when I thought of her, I could picture her only as thin and brown and straight, like the kitchen chair that I had tied the corset to.
I tried another curtsey. The velvet curtain made me clumsy. I tried again. I began to sweat, in sudden fear.