He smiled introspectively. "Yes; and I am told that, in spite of them, she is the prettiest girl in New York."
She appeared to lose interest in the topic. "Oh, indeed?"
"But," he supplemented gracefully, "it isn't true."
"What isn't true?"
"The statement that she is the prettiest girl in New York."
"How can you say that, when you admit you've never seen her?"
"I can say it with a perfectly clear conscience, Miss Guile," said he, and was filled with delight when she bit her lip as a sign of acknowledgment.
"Oh, here comes the tea," she cried, with a strange eagerness in her voice. "I am so glad." She scrambled gracefully out of her rug and arose to her feet.
"Aren't you going to have some?" he cried.
"Yes," she said, quite pointedly. "In my room, Mr. Schmidt," and before he could get to his feet she was moving away without so much as a nod or smile for him. Indeed, she appeared to have dismissed him from her thoughts quite as completely as from her vision. He experienced a queer sensation of shrivelling.