"That sounds hackneyed—the latter part of it," she remarked, "but in my case I see that it is not intended to be a compliment. What do I lack that other girls have?
"You are putting me in a tight corner," he declared. "It isn't that you lack anything, but nearly all the girls one meets some time or other seem to expect from one nice little speeches or compliments, just a little sentiment now and then. Now you seem so entirely superior to that sort of thing altogether. It is a ridiculously lame explanation. The thing's in my head all right, but I can't get it out. I can only express it when I say that you are the only girl I have ever known, or known of, in my life with whom sex would never interfere with companionship."
She stirred her coffee absently. At first he thought that she might be offended, for she did not look up for several moments.
"I'm afraid I failed altogether to make you understand what I meant," he said, humbly. "It is the result of an attempt at too great candour."
Then she looked up and smiled at him graciously enough, though it seemed to him that she was a little pale.
"I am sure you were delightfully lucid," she said. "I quite understood, and on the whole I think I agree with you. I don't think that the sentimental side of me has been properly developed. By the bye, you were going to tell me about that pretty girl I saw at Enton—Lady Caroom's daughter, wasn't she?"
His face lit up—she saw his thoughts go flitting away, and the corner of his lips curl in a retrospective smile of pleasure.
"Sybil Caroom," he said, softly. "She is a very charming girl. You would like her, I am sure. Of course she's been brought up in rather a frivolous world, but she's quite unspoilt, very sympathetic, and very intelligent. Isn't that a good character?"
"Very," she answered, with a suspicion of dryness in her tone. "Is this paragon engaged to be married yet?"
He looked at her, keenly surprised by the infusion of something foreign in her tone.