"What a pretty girl!" she said, handing it back to him. "Your sister?"
The young man flushed. "No; my fiancée."
She held out her hand and took the card again, looking at it with fresh eyes.
"A very pretty girl," she said. "What is her name?"
"Elizabeth Arnold."
"Where does she live?"
Palmerston mentioned a village in Michigan. His companion gave another glance at the picture, and laid it upon the arm of the chair. The young man rescued it from her indifference with a little irritable jerk. She was gazing unconsciously toward the horizon.
"Don't you intend to congratulate me?" he inquired with a nettled laugh.
She turned quickly, flushing to her forehead. "Pardon me. I said she was very pretty—I thought young men found that quite sufficient. I have never heard them talk much of girls in any other way. But perhaps I should have told you: I care very little about photographs, especially of women. They never look like them. They always make me think of paper dolls."
She halted between her sentences with an ungirlish embarrassment which Palmerston was beginning to find dangerously attractive.