me
out?"

Her sensitive underlip began to tremble.

"I--I don't want to criticise you----" she faltered.

"Please do. I beg of you. There are beauty doctors in town," he added
earnestly. "They can fix up a fellow--and I can go to a gymnasium, and
take up deep-breathing and----"

"But, Mr. Langdon, do _you_ want to--to be--captured----"

He looked into her bright and melting eyes.

"Yes," he said. "I'd like to give you another chance at me."

"Me? After what I did to you?"

"Will you?"

"Why, what a perfectly astonishing----"

"Not very. Look me over and tell me what points count against me. I know
I'm not good-looking, but I'd like to go into training for the bench--I
mean----"

"Mr. Langdon," she said slowly, "surely _you_ would not care to develop
the featureless symmetry and the--the monotonous perfection necessary
to----"

"Yes, I would. I wish to become superficially monotonous. I'm too varied;
I realise that. I want to resemble that make-up I wore----"

"That! Goodness! What a horrid idea----"

"Horrid? Didn't you like it well enough to net me?"

"I--there was nothing expressive of my personal taste in my capturing
you--I mean the kind of a man you appeared to be. It was my duty--a
purely scientific matter----"

"I don't care what it was. You went after me. You wouldn't go after me as
I now appear. I want you to tell me what is lacking in me which would
prevent you going after me again--from a purely scientific standpoint."

She sat breathing irregularly, rather rapidly, pretty head bent,
apparently considering her hands, which lay idly in her lap. Then she
lifted her blue eyes and inspected him. And it was curious, too, that,
now when she came to examine him, she did not seem to discover any
faults.

"My nose doesn't suit you, does it?" he asked candidly.

"Why, yes," she said innocently, "it suits me."

"That's funny," he reflected. "How about my ears?"

"They seem to be all right," she admitted.

"Do you think so?"

"They seem to me to be perfectly good ears."

"That's odd. What _is_ there queer about my face?"

She looked in vain for imperfections.

"Why, do you know, Mr. Langdon, I don't seem to notice anything that is
not entirely and agreeably classical."

"But--my legs are thin."

"Not very."

"Aren't they too thin?"

"Not _too_ thin. . . . Perhaps you might ride a bicycle for a few
days----"

"I will!" he exclaimed with a boyish enthusiasm which lighted up his fa