"Attracts you! He!"
"You have never perfectly understood me, my dear parent," she
murmured. "You have never appreciated that trait in my
character, that strange preference, if you like, for the
absolutely original. Now in all my life I never met such a young
man as this. He wears the clothes and he has the features and
speech of just such a person as you have described, but there is
a difference."
"A difference, indeed!" the professor interrupted roughly. "What
difference, I should like to know?"
She shrugged her shoulders lightly.
"He is stolid without being stupid," she explained. "He is
entirely self-centered. I smile at him, and he waits patiently
until I have finished to get on with our business. I have said
quite nice things to him and he has stared at me without change
of expression, absolutely without pleasure or emotion of any
sort."
"You are too vain, Elizabeth," her father declared. "You have
been spoilt. There are a few people in the world whom even you
might fail to charm. No doubt this young man is one of them."
She sighed gently.
"It really does seem," she admitted, "as though you were right,
but we shall see. By-the-bye, hadn't you better go? The five
minutes are nearly up."
He came over to her side, his hat and gloves in his hand,
prepared for departure.
"Will you tell me, upon your honor, Elizabeth," he begged, "that
there is no other reason for your interest? That you are not
engaged in any fresh schemes of which I know nothing? Things are
bad enough as they are.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132