She was young enough to "get away with it," the older women said
cattishly as they watched her stroll away to the beach with a new man
each day, and noted her artless grace and indifferent pose. That she
had a burly millionaire husband who still was under her spell and
watched her jealously only made her more interesting, and they pitied
her for being tied to a man twice her age and bulky as a bale of
cotton. She who could dance like a sylph and was light on her little
feet as a thistle down. Though wise ones sometimes said that Opal had
her young eyes wide open when she married Ed Verrons, and she had him
right under her little pink well manicured thumb. And some said she was
not nearly so young as she looked.

Her hands were the weakest point in Opal Verron's whole outfit. Not
that they were unlovely in form or ungraceful. They were so small they
hardly seemed like hands, so undeveloped, so useless, with the dimpling
of a baby's, yet the sharp nails of a little beast. They were so plump
and well cared for they were fairly sleek, and had an old wise air
about them as she patted her puffy curls daintily with a motion all her
own that showed her lovely rounded arm, and every needle-pointed
shell-tinted finger nail, sleek and puffy, and never used, not even
for a bit of embroidery or knitting. She couldn't, you know, with those
sharp transparent little nails, they might break. They were like her
little sharp teeth that always reminded one of a mouse's teeth, and
made one shudder at how sharp they would be should she ever
decide to bite.