"I don't care if I did. You might have said something pleasant."

Her sensitive mouth drooped. "I never think of your being ugly when I'm with you," she said. "It's a good, strong kind of ugliness, anyway. I don't mind it."

He smiled again.

"Looks don't matter, anyway," she went on soothingly. "I'd rather a man would be clever than handsome;" then she added conscientiously, "only I'd rather be handsome myself."

He looked at her closely.

"I reckon you will be," he said. "Most women are. It's the clothes, I suppose."

Eugenia looked down at him for an instant in silence; then she held out her hands.

"I am going at daybreak," she said. "Will you come down to the road and tell me good-bye?"

"Why, of course."

"But we must say good-bye now, too. Did we ever shake hands before?"