She was decidedly attractive, he saw, but in an ill-natured, ungracious way. Because of his connection with Fitzgerald, Carstairs & Scott, Johnnie had an extensive knowledge of the external appearance and different modes of behavior of a great variety of attractive women: they came up to the office in shoals, with their nails dipped in blood and their faces covered with pale cocoa. And some were charming and simple beneath their masks, and some were complex and arrogant. This girl belonged to the latter type, the type which would ignore or stare surlily at him if he spoke to them, until they learned that the actual money came through him, when their manner sweetened wonderfully. This girl wore her attractiveness not as a girl should, simply, consciously, as a happy crown of pleasure, but rather as a murderous utensil with which she might wound indiscriminately right and left, and which she would only employ to please when it suited her purpose. They were like bad-tempered street-walkers, without walking the street. Patrick Hamilton
About This Quote

The way of the world is filled with people who look good on the outside but are very bad on the inside. The author, William Faulkner, describes a woman that he met in New Orleans as “bad-tempered” and “without walking the street.” He was talking about a woman who used her beauty as a weapon to hurt others and not as a happy crown of pleasure. This girl was not someone you would want to be friends with.

Source: Hangover Square

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