"Yes."
"And you will bury it in the innermost recesses of your soul, and never divulge it?"
"Certainly."
"And brace yourself for a shock when I reveal it to you?"
"Yes."
"Well, here it is! My cleverness is like what you—and two or three other most charming people—are good enough to call my prettiness. It is a delusion and a snare!"
"Come!" he said. "You are attempting to deceive me."
"No," she answered. "I am attempting to undeceive you. I am not really pretty or clever at all, and it has been the object of my life to prevent its being detected."
She opened her eyes in the most charmingly ingenuous manner and nodded her head.
"I discovered it myself," she said, "long ago,—comparatively early in life,—and resolved to conceal it. And nothing but the confidence I repose in you would have induced me to mention it."