"I!" she exclaimed. "I?"
"Yes, you!"
"Well," she replied, after a second's pause given to inspection of him, "this is open derision!"
"It is perfectly true," was his response; "and it is true for good reasons. Your strength would lie in the very fact that you would be entirely unlike your co-laborers in the field. You have a finished little air of ingenuousness which would be your fortune."
She shook her head with a pretty gesture.
"No," she said. "I am very clever, and of course you cannot help observing it, but I am not clever enough for that."
He gave her a glance at once curious and admiring.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "it is my belief you are clever enough for anything."
"Richard," she said, "shall I tell you a secret?"