"Now, just think of that girl I've told you about—Lucy Sorrel,"—proceeded Angus—"Nothing would have contented her in all this world!"
"Not even her old millionaire?" suggested Helmsley, placidly.
"No, certainly not! Poor old devil! He'll soon find himself put on the shelf if he marries her. He won't be able to call his soul his own! If he gives her diamonds, she'll want more diamonds—if he covers her and stuffs her with money, she'll never have enough! She'll want all she can get out of him while he lives and everything he has ever possessed when he's dead."
Helmsley rubbed his hands more vigorously together.
"A very nice young lady," he murmured. "Very nice indeed! But if you judge her in this way now, why did you ever fall in love with her?"
"She was pretty, David!" and Reay smiled—"That's all! My passion for her was skin-deep! And hers for me didn't even touch the cuticle! She was pretty—as pretty as a wax-doll,—perfect eyes, perfect hair, perfect figure, perfect complexion—ugh! how I hate perfection!"
And taking up the poker, he gave a vigorous blow to a hard lump of coal in the grate, and split it into a blaze.
"I hate perfection!" he resumed—"Or rather, I hate what passes for perfection, for, as a matter of fact, there's nothing perfect. And I specially and emphatically hate the woman that considers herself a 'beauty,' that gets herself photographed as a 'beauty,' that the press reporter speaks of as a 'beauty,'—and that affronts you with her 'beauty' whenever you look at her, as though she were some sort of first-class goods for sale. Now Miss Mary is a beautiful woman—and she doesn't seem to know it."
"Her time for vanity is past,"—said Helmsley, sententiously—"She is an old maid."