"I know I look awful."
"You look perfectly sweet."
"I can't help it."
"I shouldn't try."
She did look wonderful. I had put her upon the sofa, but she had moved from there, and was sitting on the hearth in front of the great fire. Plainly she had kept her long grey fur coat on, when she had first sat down but now she had slipped out of it, and it lay all tumbled about her on the rug. She was in evening dress, and might have returned, as I had, from a ball. All blue, it was, blue of a wonderful shade—periwinkle, I think they call it, Her stockings were flesh-coloured and her shoes of gold: these she had taken off, the better to warm her little shining feet. White arms propped her towards the fire, and she sat sideways, with one leg straight by the warm kerb, the other drawn up and bringing her dress tight and a little away from a silk knee. Her dark hair had worked loose under the weight of the rug, and was lying thick about her smooth shoulders. Save in her face, she wore no jewels, but two great brown stars smiled at me from either side of a straight nose. The lips were red now, and her throat soft and white as her shoulders. I gazed down at her.
"No jewels, you see, Adam," she said suddenly. "I'm afraid you've struck a loser this time. You'll have to stick to the Great North Road in future."
"No jewels?" said I. "You have a wealth of hair, and what about the pearls behind your lips? They're worth a king's ransom."
"They're not made to take out, though, and there's no gold with them."
She put up the red mouth and showed two rows of teeth, white and even.
"Tempt me no more," said I. "Oh, Eve, you're just as bad as ever. After all this time, too. However. I hesitate to mention supper, because you look so lovely sitting there, but—"