no facet or gleam of beauty

p. 30:

Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering.

There’s something sophomorically prudish about Fitzgerald’s refusal to describe Mrs. Wilson as beautiful. As if to find beauty in her obvious sexuality would diminish the refined sensibility required to appreciate the charms of the dewy southern flowers he idolizes.