"Again?" Jimmie plagiarized.
"Yes, again. Tell me, what is she like?"
"She is like," he began so deliberately that his hostess, leaning forward, hung upon his words, "she is exactly like—nothing." The hostess sat back. "There was never anything in the least like her. To begin with, she is fair and young and slim. She is tall enough, and small enough and her eyes are gray and black and blue."
"She sounds disreputable, your paragon."
"And her eyes," he insisted, "are gray in the sunlight, blue in the lamplight, and black by the light of the moon."
"And in the firelight?"
He rose to kick the logs into a greater brightness; and when he had studied her glowing face until it glowed even more brightly, he answered:
"In the firelight they are—wonderful. She has—did I tell you?—the whitest and smallest of teeth."
"They're so much worn this year," she laughed, and wondered the while what evil instinct tempted her to play this dangerous game; why she could not refrain from peering into the deeper places of his nature to see if her image were still there and still supreme? Why should she, almost involuntarily, work to create and foster an emotion upon which she set no store, which indeed, only amused her in its milder manifestations and frightened her when it grew intense? He showed symptoms of unwelcome seriousness now, but she would have none of it.
"Go on," she urged. "Unless you give her a few more features she will be like little Red Riding Hood's grandmother."