"I don't wonder!" Arethusa's own admiration was wholly undisguised by now. "He's the handsomest man I ever saw!" she added recklessly.
"He's handsome enough, I reckon, but he knows it almost too well. And he just hates himself!"
"That's a horrid thing to say about anybody; I don't believe it at all! And how on earth could he help knowing he's good-looking if he ever looks in the mirror! There's no harm in knowing you're good-looking if you are!"
The subject of this discussion looked far more as those charming gentlemen pictured in the advertising sections of our various current magazines to show the superiority of certain brands of collars and other necessary articles of manly garb were intended to look than the artists have ever been able to make the pictures. He was superbly tall and broad of shoulder; in every way he fulfilled the most exacting requirements of what a Hero should be. No dream of a Prince Charming could have formed a being half so well-fitted for the role as this living Reality.
He wore his faultless dress clothes as if they had been a veritable part of him, not something donned for the few hours of this evening. And he had gold-tipped eyelashes every bit as long as Arethusa's own (she could tell that they were even so far away as she sat from him), and the most irresistible of smiles. He smiled with commendable frequency. Perhaps he knew that his rows of teeth were as perfect as ordinary human teeth could very well be, and that this superlative smile was in consequence no trifling addition to his other attractions of person. He had a little trick of flinging his head back when he laughed aloud, that showed to still greater advantage all of these wonderful teeth, and his eyelashes, and even called attention to the perfect straightness of his handsome nose.
He laughed for Arethusa's benefit as she watched him, and she smiled in sympathy for such a charming laugh, although she was so far across the room from him she could have no idea why he laughed.
And then she gazed and gazed at him, unashamed; a tiny sigh fluttered through her parted red lips.
"I wish I could meet Him!"
"That's perfectly simple," remarked Mr. Watts. "Introductions haven't gone out yet, as I have heard." His tone was scornful, but it was all lost on Arethusa.
"Could you introduce me?" eagerly.