“Poor man!” Alice said, gently, and her impulsive thought was that Mildred had taken few chances, and that as a matter of self-defense her carefulness might have been well founded. This Mr. Arthur Russell was a much more responsive person than one had supposed.
“So, Mr. Russell, you don't know anything about me except what you thought when you first saw me?”
“Yes, I know I was right when I thought it.”
“You haven't told me what you thought.”
“I thought you were like what you ARE like.”
“Not very definite, is it? I'm afraid you shed more light a minute or so ago, when you said how different from Mildred you thought I was. That WAS definite, unfortunately!”
“I didn't say it,” Russell explained. “I thought it, and you read my mind. That's the sort of girl I thought you were—one that could read a man's mind. Why do you say 'unfortunately' you're not like Mildred?”
Alice's smooth gesture seemed to sketch Mildred. “Because she's perfect—why, she's PERFECTLY perfect! She never makes a mistake, and everybody looks up to her—oh, yes, we all fairly adore her! She's like some big, noble, cold statue—'way above the rest of us—and she hardly ever does anything mean or treacherous. Of all the girls I know I believe she's played the fewest really petty tricks. She's——”
Russell interrupted; he looked perplexed. “You say she's perfectly perfect, but that she does play SOME——”
Alice laughed, as if at his sweet innocence. “Men are so funny!” she informed him. “Of course girls ALL do mean things sometimes. My own career's just one long brazen smirch of 'em! What I mean is, Mildred's perfectly perfect compared to the rest of us.”