“Why, yes, you are the strangest-looking pretty girl I've ever seen. You know, my dear, if I should catalogue your features no one would think it the portrait of an angelic-looking creature. It would sound like a vixen. Now, stiffen up your vanity and listen.” She looked me over and gave me this description. “You have fiery hair, in the first place, which is the right color for a vixen, you know, and you have a long, slender, pale face, and green-blue eyes, though they do look black at night and gray sometimes, but still they are the real Becky Sharp color and no mistake. You have very thin, red lips, and, if their expression was not so unmistakably sweet, I should say they were frightfully capable of looking cruel and—well, yes—mean.”
“Oh, Mrs. Brane, what a dreadful portrait!”
“What did I tell you? It is true, too, line by line, and yet you are quite the loveliest-looking woman I have ever seen. Miss Gale, come, now, you must see the impression you make. Are you not concerned over the condition of poor Paul Dabney?”
“I have not noticed his condition,” said I bitterly.
She shook her head at me. “Fibs!” she said. “The poor boy is as restless as a hawk. He is getting pale and thin and gaunt. He eats nothing. He can't let you out of his sight.”
“If he is consumed by love of me,” I said, “it is strange that he has never confided to me as to his sufferings.”
“But has n't he really, Janice?—I am just going to call you by your first name, may I?” I was so grateful to her for the pretty way she said it and for the sweet look she gave me, that I kissed the hand she held out.
“Has n't he really made love to you, Janice? I could have sworn that, during all those hours you two have spent in the bookroom, something of the sort was going on.”
“Nothing of the sort at all. In fact, Mrs. Brane, I think that Paul Dabney dislikes me very much.”
She thought this over, stirring her coffee absently and staring into the coalfire. “It is rather mysterious, but, sometimes, I have thought that too. At least, his feeling for you is very strong, one way or the other. Sometimes it has seemed to me that he both hates and loves you. How do you treat him, Janice?”