"Why do you doubt it?"
"Because—oh, because you are too different. Do you know—and this is as secret as the grave—if I thought Laura really cared for you it would drive me to despair. But she won't—she couldn't—you aren't half—you aren't one hundredth part good enough, you know."
In spite of his smile she saw that there was a tinge of annoyance in the look he fixed upon her. "By Jove, I thought you rather liked me!" he exclaimed.
"I do—I love you—I always have." She stretched out her hand until the tips of her fingers rested upon his arm. "You are quite and entirely good enough for me, my dear, but I'm not Laura, and strange as it may seem I honestly care a little more for her than for myself. So if you are really obliged to fall in love again, suppose you let it be with me?"
"With you?" He met her charming eyes with his ironic smile. "Oh, I couldn't—I was brought up on your kind, and perfect as you are, you would only give me the tiresome, familiar society affair. There isn't any mystery about you. I know your secret."
"Well, at least you didn't learn it from Madame Alta," she retorted.
"From Madame Alta! Pshaw! she was never anything but a vocal instrument."
"Do you remember the way she sang this?" asked Gerty; and springing to her feet she fell into an exaggerated mimicry of the prima donna's pose, while she trilled out a languishing passage from "Faust." "I always laughed when she got to that scene," she added, coming back to the couch, "because when she grew sentimental she reminded me of a love-sick sheep."
"Then why do you resurrect her ghost?" he demanded. "So far as I am concerned she might have lived in the last century."
"And yet how mad you used to be about her."