“It will be so interesting,” said she. “I’m dying to see what will be the result of our experiment. I wonder does it matter about my not thinking you good-looking.”
He caught her hand. She flushed.
“Do you not think me good-looking?” he asked. “Well, really, to be candid with you—and of course it’s in the ‘rules’ that we are both to be candid, I think you anything but—but—good gracious! what has come over me? Only yesterday I was thinking about you and I thought of you as being quite plain; but now—now that I come to look at you, I declare that you seem good-looking—positively good-looking! You have good eyes. I don’t suppose you ever told a lie in your life.”
“That’s going from a question of eyes to ethics, isn’t it; but whether or not I ever had imagination enough to tell a whopper, I am telling the truth now when I say that I have come to the conclusion that you are the nicest girl I ever met as well as being the most beautiful—that’s why I tried to. You see I always thought you the most beautiful—that’s why I tried to avoid meeting you for a long time—I was afraid that I would be disillusioned, as they call it.”
“And you were not?”
“On the contrary I think that—that we’re on the eve of a very interesting experiment—that’s how the newspapers would define the situation of the moment.”
“After all nothing may come of it.” There was a suspicion of a sigh in her delivery of the phrase.
“Are you taking what you would call an optimistic view of the matter?” he asked.
She actually flushed again—very slightly—as she said:
“The scientific atmosphere in which I was born forbids optimism or pessimism. I wish to remain neutral.”