"And so honestly. Remember, I have always paid you the compliment of being plain even to rudeness."
Lionel tried to read her face, but in vain, and could not arrive at the meaning of her apparently aimless conversation. The slanting rays of sunset made a radiant glory round her as she half sat, half reclined in the chair, and her beauty could bear even that merciless test. Youth, health, money, charm, loveliness--with these desirable blessings at her command, what else could she want?
"I do not quite understand," said the perplexed man.
"Understand what?" she asked absently; then became more alive to his question. "Oh, my chatter. You will, before we part. I am no sphinx to propose riddles."
"Every woman is a sphinx."
"Without a secret; that is why you men find us so difficult to comprehend."
"I confess to the difficulty at this moment."
"What a complex mind I must have! Yet I am a very ordinary butterfly of fashion; something with wings, at all events, though not entirely an angel."
Her visitor laughed. "Am I to pay you a compliment, or rebuke you for frivolity?"
"You can do both or either; the sweet first will counterbalance the bitter last. But I sicken of compliments."