The object of the exercise, as Katharine briskly put it, was to get her friend cleaned up, and ready to confront the world. While Elizabeth washed her face, Katharine had her jacket in her hand, attacking it smartly with a stiff clothes brush which the attendant had lent her, and who continued to sit by the door with a saucer of silver coins pointedly displayed: she had seen him in the act of weeding out some coppers and putting them in his pocket. Elizabeth had her glasses on the cabinet surface by the basin while she splashed her face with water, head bowed slightly, not looking at herself in the mirror. ‘Don’t you ever take those off?’ asked Katharine. ‘Blind as a bat without them.’ Elizabeth tried to shrug while bent over; the effect was of a brief, convulsive hunch. She towelled herself, restored the glasses in such a way that her hands covered much of her face, pulled on the proffered jacket. ‘You must let me put some makeup on you, you know,’ said Katharine; she firmly removed the glasses again, and applied eyeliner while Elizabeth submitted.
