"What a picture!" she commented. And then: "I can draw a better one of you, Monsieur Victor de Brouillard."
"Do it," he dared.
"It'll hurt your vanity."
"I haven't any."
"Oh, but you have! Don't you know that it is only the very vainest people who say that?"
"Never mind; go on and draw your picture."
"Even if it should give you another attack of the 'seeing things'?"
"Yes; I'll chance even that."
"Very well, then: once upon a time—it was a good while ago, I'm afraid—you were a very upright young man, and your uprightness made you just a little bit austere—for yourself, if not for others. At that time you were busy whittling out heroic little ideals and making idols of them; and I am quite sure you were spelling duty with a capital 'D' and that you would have been properly horrified if a sister of yours had permitted an unchaperoned acquaintance like—well, like ours."
"Go on," he said, neither affirming nor denying.