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I knew your secret.”
    â€œMy secret, ma’am?”
    â€œYour beauty secret,” said the duchess. “Miss Tinsley tells me that you use nothing but Milk and Roses. I cannot believe it. Why, your skin is perfect. ”
    Celia looked back at her, smiling faintly. “Thank you, Your Grace. I do have a little secret, as it happens.”
    â€œI knew it!” Lucasta exclaimed in triumph. “I knew it was not all down to Milk and Roses.”
    â€œIt’s very good, whatever it is,” said the duchess.
    â€œThank you, Your Grace. It is good. Better than anything you will find on the market. I daresay, it’s like nothing you’ve ever tried before,” she added.
    â€œHow do you know what I’ve tried before?” Lucasta asked sourly.
    â€œIt goes on quite invisible, and it won’t rub off.”
    â€œMy dear, that is impossible,” declared the duchess.
    â€œAre you wearing it now?” Lucasta demanded.
    â€œI am never without it,” Celia replied.
    â€œAnd it won’t rub off?” Lucasta asked.
    â€œNo. You may try, if you like,” Celia invited her.
    Rather than risk her gloves, Lucasta took out her handkerchief and drew it firmly across Celia’s cheek. To her amazement, the white cambric came away quite clean.
    â€œI told you,” said Celia, smiling.
    â€œGood heavens!” cried the duchess with great eagerness. “I should not have thought it possible. How does it feel on the face?” She patted her own cheeks rapidly.
    â€œLike air, ma’am. I don’t even know it’s there until I look in the mirror.”
    Rising from her seat, the duchess moved closer in. Opening her lorgnette, she scrutinized Celia’s face minutely and with magnification. “I vow!” she breathed. “’Tis quite undetectable! And it doesn’t collect at the corners of your mouth? It does not dry out and crack?”
    â€œOh no, ma’am, never. I would not like that at all!”
    â€œIf it does all you say, one must have it,” said the duchess. “What is it called?”
    Celia was now enjoying herself. “Nature’s Bloom, ma’am,” she said, opening her new fan. Of tortoiseshell, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, it was really quite beautiful and must have been expensive.
    For skin like St. Lys’s, Lucasta would gladly have sold her immortal soul. “Where can I get it?” she cried.
    â€œI’m sorry, Miss Tinsley,” Celia told her. “It’s not available to the public.”
    â€œNonsense!” Lucasta said angrily. “Who makes it?”
    Celia smiled. “Its creator is in heaven. When my supply runs out, ’tis gone forever.”
    â€œNonsense,” snapped Lucasta. “Even if the man is dead, he must have left his formula behind. There must be some way to make more Nature’s Bloom. Where did you purchase it?”
    â€œâ€™Twas a gift,” Celia replied, “from the Creator himself. He made it for me especially.”
    â€œThen I demand that you sell me your supply. Name your price!” Lucasta commanded.
    Fitzclarence could take no more of the joke, and laughed aloud. Looking around in amazement, the duchess saw that Dorian was also laughing. All at once, the duchess realized that St. Lys had been fooling. As disappointed as she was to realize that there was no invisible cosmetic that carried away all one’s flaws and never wore off, she accepted the joke with good grace, and managed to laugh at her own folly.
    â€œYou should not get an old woman’s hopes up like that,” she chided Celia, wagging her finger. “Nature’s Bloom, indeed! Better than anything on the market! Oh! If only it could be bottled. I for one would bathe in it.”
    Lucasta was the last to get the joke, and the only one unamused.
    â€œHow dare you mock me!” she cried, her face red. Her hand shot out and she slapped Celia hard across