Nice eyes! At that moment it was like an insult. And so good-humored about it! He struggled with a crushing sense of inferiority.
“Well, at any rate, you are well-named,” he said.
“Am I? I thought the original Elaine was a pale, die-away maiden who floated down the river with flowers in her hair, and her toes turned to the sky!—But maybe I’m thinking of somebody else. My literary associations are hazy.”
“The Lady of Shalott?” suggested Wilfred. “I was thinking of the mere sound of the name. Elaine! So forthright!”
“So you think I’m a forthright sort of person?”
“Rather!”
“That requires consideration.”
“How do you seem to yourself?” asked Wilfred.
“Oh, I don’t know. . . . We are all over-civilized, over-complicated nowadays. . . .”
“You are neither civilized nor complicated,” said Wilfred boldly.