"With the young Canadian—yes?"
"Somehow, monsieur, she frightens me. I did not know that women ever looked that way—like Louis when he catches a mouse."
"The simile is very apt, Pippa."
"But then"—her brows puckered with a first endeavor to harness language to her psychology—"you can see that nice girl there, so fair and pink."
"I prefer them dark," said he seriously; "but what of her?"
The expounder of philosophy breathed deeply, but stuck to her task.
"I think," she said, "that the fair girl is nice, but this one is …" (shrug) … "Then why, monsieur, does the nice one try to look just like the other?—Regardez-moi ça—see her now."
He poured out the tea, which had just arrived.
"Shall I tell you a story?" he asked.
She sighed happily. "Tell me a true story," she said with that insistence of the young on making all things believable.