"You can read faces?"
"A little, I flatter myself. Can you?"
"Give me a chance of trying."
She raised her veil, and he inspected her for some moments, then looked away.
"Excellently well, if God did all," he observed, with a smile.
"That's out of a play," she replied quickly. "I heard it a little time ago, but I forget the answer. I'd have given anything to be able to cap you! Then you'd have put me down for a clever woman, and I should have lived on the reputation henceforth and for ever. But it's all my own, indeed; I'm not afraid of crying."
"Do you ever cry? I can't easily imagine it."
"Oh yes, sometimes," she answered, sighing, and at the same time lowering her veil again. "But you haven't read my face for me."
"It's a face I'm sorry to have seen."
"Why?" she asked, holding her hands clasped before her, the palms turned outwards.