"Hailed a gentleman exactly like myself."
She dallied with a rose, brushing it across her lips. "I do not know why I desire your good opinion. Perhaps it's the novelty of sitting beside a man who does not believe in flattery."
"Flattery is a truth that is not true. I think you are charming, beautiful, engaging, enchanting, mystifying. I can think of no other adjectives."
"If flattery is a truth that is not true, then all your pretty adjectives mean nothing."
"Oh, but I do not flatter you. Men flatter homely women—homely women who are rich and easily hoodwinked. What I have offered you in the line of decorative adjectives your mirror has already told you time and time again. If I said that you were witty, scholarly, scientific, vastly and highly intellectual, not knowing you any better than I do, that would be flattery. Do you grasp the point?"
"Nebulously. You are trying to say something nice."
"We are getting on capitally. When I left the club to-night the wildest stretch of my fancy would not have placed me here beside you."
"Yes,"—irrelevantly, "most of us are mad. Everything is so monotonous."
"To-night?"