She listened with that enigmatic, still, under the eyelids glance, and a friendly turn of the head.
"I know you for a frank and loyal gentleman.… Adventure—and books? Ah, the books! Haven't I turned stacks of them over! Haven't I? …"
"Yes," murmured Mills. "That's what one does."
She put out her hand and laid it lightly on Mills' sleeve.
"Listen, I don't need to justify myself, but if I had known a single woman in the world, if I had only had the opportunity to observe a single one of them, I would have been perhaps on my guard. But you know I hadn't. The only woman I had anything to do with was myself, and they say that one can't know oneself. It never entered my head to be on my guard against his warmth and his terrible obviousness. You and he were the only two, infinitely different, people, who didn't approach me as if I had been a precious object in a collection, an ivory carving or a piece of Chinese porcelain. That's why I have kept you in my memory so well. Oh! you were not obvious! As to him—I soon learned to regret I was not some object, some beautiful, carved object of bone or bronze; a rare piece of porcelain, Pâte dure, not pâte tendre. A pretty specimen."
"Rare, yes. Even unique," said Mills, looking at her steadily with a smile. "But don't try to depreciate yourself. You were never pretty. You are not pretty. You are worse."
Her narrow eyes had a mischievous gleam. "Do you find such sayings in your books?" she asked.
"As a matter of fact I have," said Mills, with a little laugh, "found this one in a book. It was a woman who
