"I would need to be, to be worthy of sitting beside you," he replied, his wits floating, unmanageable.
"Did you get my note?"
"Yes, I want to thank you for it."
"I hope you've forgiven me."
"Of course, I was only flattered by your frankness."
"It's so easy to be frank with you," she said. "You see, I'm perfectly myself with you, even en masque. I doubt if any of my friends would know me as I am with you."
"But I've seen a new 'you' that I haven't known before."
"Then she owes her existence to your presence. But how am I different? Tell me."
"You take my breath away. You say such charming things to me that it deprives me of the power of answering you—anything I could say seems ineffective and cheap. You get ahead of me so. Really, you'll have to be positively rude to me before I can summon presence of mind enough to say anything gallant."
Again her lips curved daintily. Her voice was dulcet: