“Er—as I was approaching the office this morning,” he said, in an especially dry and scholarly voice, “I chanced to overhear a young man make the following remark, namely: ‘Mary Jenkins is a pretty girl.’... Now it is possible I have encountered that expression on numerous occasions, but this is the first time I have become conscious of it, and curious concerning it.”
“Curious?”
“Precisely.... As to its significance and—er—its causes. I have been giving consideration to it. It is not without interest.”
“Pretty girls,” said Carmel, somewhat flippantly, “are always supposed to be of interest to men.”
“Um!... I have not found them so. That is not the point. What arrested my thought was this: What constitutes prettiness? Why is one girl pretty and another not pretty? You follow me?”
“I think so.”
“Prettiness, as I understand it, is a quality of the personal appearance which gives to the beholder a pleasurable sensation.”
“Something of the sort.”
“Ah.... Then, what causes it? It is intangible. Let us examine concrete examples. Let us stand side by side Mary Jenkins, who is said to possess this quality, and—shall we say?—Mrs. Bogardus, who is reputed not to possess it. Why is one pretty and the other quite the opposite of pretty?” He shook his head. “I confess I had never become consciously aware of this difference between women....”
“What?”