Blanche sets her value in her appearance so she doesn't want to meet anyone until she has gotten ready and refreshed herself. Blanch hides her identity by covering it up with her appearance. Since this takes place in the first scene and its the first time the audience is introduced to Blanche it reveals a lot about her character and how important her vanity is to her.

Stalely tries to outsmart Blanche by trying to make it seem then we is smarter and more informed than he actually is. by doing this he tries to boost his identity so the two women think he is well informed. In reality, Blanche is smarter than his and is able to disprove his statement which he doesn't like because he views it as her decreasing his identity.