omely woman, Mr. Gael."

He laughed. "Oh," said he with a gesture, "there is no such thing as a
homely woman. A homely woman simply does not count." He got up, looked
for a book, found it, opened it, and brought it to her. "Look at that
picture, Joan. What do you think of it?"

It was of a woman, a long-drawn, emaciated creature, extraordinarily
artificial in her grace and in the pose and expression of her ugly,
charming form and features. She had been aided by hair-dresser and
costumer and by her own wit, aided into something that made of her an
arresting and compelling picture. "What do you think of her, Joan?"
smiled Prosper Gael.

Joan screwed up her eyes distastefully. "Ain't she queer, Mr. Gael?
Poor thing, she's homely!"

He clapped to the book. "A matter of educated taste," he said. "You
don't know beauty when you see it. If you walked into a drawing-room by
the side of that marvelous being, do you think you'd win a look, my dear
girl? Why, your great brows and your great, wild eyes and your face and
form of an Olympian and your free grace of a forest beast--why, they
wouldn't be noticed. Because, Joan, that queer, poor thing knew woman's
work from A to Z. She's beautiful, Joan, beautiful as God most certainly
never intended her to be. Why, it's a triumph--it's something to blow a
trumpet over. It's art!"

He returned the volume and came back to stand by the mantel,
half-turned from her, looking down into the fire. For the moment, he
had created in himself a reaction against his present extraordinary
experiment, his wilderness adventure. He was keenly conscious of a
desire for civilized woman, for her practiced tongue, her poise, her
matchless companionship....

Joan spoke, "You mean I'm awful homely, Mr. Gael?"

The question set him to laughing outrageously. Joan's pride was stung.

"You've no right to laugh at me," she said. "I'd not be carin' what
you think." And she left him, moving like an angry stag, head high,
light-stepping.

He went back to his work, not at all in regret at her pique and still
amused by the utter femininity of her simple question.

Before dinner he rapped at her door. "Joan, will you do me a favor?"

A pause, then, in her sweet, vibrant voice, she answered, "I'd be
doin' anything fer you, Mr. Gael."

"Then, put on these things for dinner instead of your own clothes,
will you?"

She opened the door and he piled into her arms a mass of shining silk,
on top of it a pair of