" he continued, almost meditatively.
"But I'll bet he often thought of it himself. I guess he wouldn't be
satisfied with anything less than that."

When he stopped they stood a moment smiling at each other. Then she went
back to the couch with rather a businesslike air.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"I'm twenty-four. How old are you?"

She smiled, quite disarmed by the artlessness of this brutality.

"I am twenty-seven."

"That's pretty old, isn't it?" he commented, gravely. "I shouldn't have
said you were older than I am. Some ways you look younger. And what a
lot you must have seen out yonder!"

"You should go there yourself, to work, to study." She felt that he was
curiously watching her lips as she spoke rather than listening to her.

"Now I see it's only your profile that's sad," he began in the same
detached, absent way he had spoken of the books, the way of one talking
in solitude. "Your full face isn't sad; it's full of joy; but there's a
droop to the profile. Here--I'll show you." He took a sketch-book from
the table.

"I'll show you this, now we're such good friends. I could only draw the
profile because--well, that was the only thing I could look at much."

She looked and saw herself on three pages of the book, quick little
drawings, all of the side face.

"I didn't dream you had seen me enough," she said. "And you have
everything from cap to boots, and Cooney----"

"I knew Cooney, and I've--well--I've watched you some when you didn't
know."

"Certainly you never watched me when I did know," she retorted.

"I should think not!" He laughed uneasily. "But you see the sadness
there. I tried to locate it, but I couldn't. I only knew it was there
because I found it in the sketches when they were done. I think I caught
the figure pretty well in that one. Stand that way now, won't you?"

She rose graciously.

"Here's your quirt, and catch your skirts the way you've done
there--that's it. Yes, I got that long line down from the shoulder. It's
a fine line. You are beautiful," he continued critically. "I like the
way your neck goes up from your shoulders, and your head has a perky
kind of a tilt, as if you wouldn't be easy to bluff."

She smiled, meditating some jocose retort, but he still surveyed her
impersonally, not seeing the smile. She dropped to the couch rather
quickly.

"Let us talk about you," she urged. But he did not hear.

"Your face, though--that's the fine thing--" He was scanni