“Oh, you needn't flash and look indignant; it is quite true! Don't be absurd, Mr. Ormiston. How is it possible for you to love one you have never seen?”
“I have seen you. Do you think I am blind?” he demanded, indignantly.
“My face, I mean. I don't consider that you can see a person without looking in her face. Now you have never looked in mine, and how do you know I have any face at all?”
“Madame, you mock me.”
“Not at all. How are you to know what is behind this mask?”
“I feel it, and that is better; and I love you all the same.”
“Mr. Ormiston, how do you know but I am ugly.”
“Madame, I do not believe you are; you are all too perfect not to have a perfect face; and even were it otherwise, I still love you!”
She broke into a laugh—one of her low, short, deriding laughs.
“You do! O man, how wise thou art! I tell you, if I took off this mask, the sight would curdle the very blood in your veins with horror—would freeze the lifeblood in your heart. I tell you!” she passionately cried, “there are sights too horrible for human beings to look on and live, and this—this is one of them!”