"Not quite so many, Evie," he answered. "To be exact, I can't remember having been so shamelessly complimentary to any girl before. You need not call me 'Mr. Morelle' unless you wish to—my friends call me 'Ronnie'."
She played with the handkerchief on her lap. "It seems so familiar. Honestly, Ronnie, aren't you rather—what is the word? The book you lent me—a play?"
"A philanderer?" suggested the other. "My dear child, how silly you are. Of course I'm not. Very few people have impressed me as you have. It must have been fate that took me into Burts—I never go into shops, but François—that's my man—"
"I know him," she nodded, "he often comes in. I used to wonder who he was."
"He was out and I wanted—I forget what it was I wanted, even forget whether I bought it. I must have done, otherwise I should not have found myself staring over a paydesk at the most lovely girl in all the world."
She laughed, a gurgling laugh of sheer happiness, and looked at him swiftly before she dropped her eyes again.
"I like to hear that," she said softly. "It is so wonderful—that you like me, I mean. Because I'm nothing, really. And you, you're a—well, gentleman. I know you hate the word, but you are. Miles and miles above me. Why, I live in a miserable little house in a horrible neighborhood—full of thieves and terrible creatures who drink. And my mother does odd jobs for people. And I'm not very well educated—really. I can read and write, but I'm not half so clever as Christina, that is my sister. She's an invalid and reads all day and all night too, if I'd let her."
He was watching her as she spoke. The play of color in her pretty face, the rise and fall of her narrow chest, the curve of chin and the velvet smoothness of her throat—he marked them all with the eye of the gourmet who watches lambs frisking in the pasture and sees, not the poetry and beauty of young life, but a likeable dish that will one day mature. "If you were a beggar-maid and I were a prince"—he began.
"I'm not much better, am I?" she asked ruefully, "and you are a prince, to me, Ronnie—" She was thinking.
"Yes?"