eleven o'clock
What ? Oh , yes , I 'll come straight from Dinard 's . '' His voice , eager and friendly over the telephone , had given her confidence , and when she went back to the showroom , where the saleswomen were assembling , she was already planning the interview . At eleven o'clock Madame , who never arrived earlier , was seen descending from a hansom , and a few minutes later she waddled , wheezing , asthmatic , and infirm of joints , through the ivory and gold doorway . Like some fantastically garlanded Oriental goddess of death , her rouged and powdered face nodded grotesquely beneath the flowery wreath on her hat . The indestructible youth of her spirit , struggling valiantly against the inert weight of the flesh , had squeezed her enormous figure into the curveless stays of the period , and had painted into some ghastly semblance of health the wrinkled skin of her cheeks . For underneath the decaying mockery of Madame 's body , the indomitable soul of Madame still fought the everlasting battle of mind against matter , of the immaterial against the material elements .