Cosmetics

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Jason Blood sat in a deep chair in his study and for the dozenth time pressed the button in the chair arm which projected Carol’s letter onto the screen opposite him. The first projection had been a considerable shock, but with subsequent projections, in the light of his newly discovered loneliness, he found that he was able to view her animated face with the same contempt, the same amused contempt that he viewed all the others. But there was pain in it too, because she had been his wife for many years.

He stopped listening to the sense of her words and examined the structure of her face. He knew that it was Carol because of the identification medallion on the left side of her tunic. He realized that he was glad that, throughout. all of her autocosmetic changes she had retained a delicate bone structure around her eyes, at her temples. Not like some of the others who diverted themselves by frequently-shifting to the grotesque, making life a succession of masks — the lovely and the horrible, a spiced cookery of flesh and outlook.

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