Page:Booth Tarkington - Alice Adams.djvu/208

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198
ALICE ADAMS

"Don't you remember? I told you the other day. I'm just me!"

"But who is that?"

"You forget everything," said Alice. "You told me what kind of a girl I am. You seemed to think you'd taken quite a fancy to me from the very first."

"So I did," he agreed, heartily.

"But how quickly you forgot it!"

"Oh, no. I only want you to say what kind of a girl you are."

She mocked him. "'I don't know; I've often wondered!' What kind of a girl does Mildred tell you I am? What has she said about me since she told you I was 'a Miss Adams?'"

"I don't know; I haven't asked her."

"Then don't ask her," Alice said, quickly.

"Why?"

"Because she's such a perfect creature and I'm such an imperfect one. Perfect creatures have the most perfect way of ruining the imperfect ones."

"But then they wouldn't be perfect. Not if they———"

"Oh, yes, they remain perfectly perfect," she assured him. "That's because they never go into details. They're not so vulgar as to come right out and tell that