"Now you compel me to it," says Molly, laughing. "What! do you think I could suffer myself to be considered a thing apart? Impossible. No one likes to be thought odd or eccentric except rich old men, and Bohemians, and poets; therefore I insist on following closely in my sisters' footsteps, and warn you I shall be in a furious passion the moment you speak, whether or not I am really annoyed. Now go on if you dare?"
"Well, look here," begins Luttrell, in a conciliating tone.
"There is not the slightest use in your beating about the bush, Teddy," says Miss Massereene, calmly. "I am going to be angry, so do not waste time in diplomacy."
"Molly, how provoking you are!"
"No! Am I? Because I wish to be like other women?"
"A hopeless wish, and a very unwise one."
"'Hopeless!' And why, pray?" With a little uplifting of the straight brows and a little gleam from under the long curled lashes.
"Because," says her lover, with fond conviction, "you are so infinitely superior to them, that they would have to be born all over again before you could bring yourself to fall into their ways."
"What! every woman in the known world?"
"Every one of them, I am eternally convinced."