“Lend me your pocket mirror and I will.”
“Never!” she said emphatically.
“Never what?”
“Never carried a pocket mirror in my life. Never taught you to make pretty speeches,” she said tartly. “Why, the first time I saw you, you sat and twirled your thumbs like a ‘bound boy at a corn-husking,’ and never said anything but ‘Yes’m,’ and ‘No’m,’ and then only when you were spoken to!”
“That proves what I affirm. That was the way I was when I met you,—and look at me now!” with an air of conscious pride.
“Yes, look at you now!” she mocked scornfully, “with Mother Goose platitudes tripping off your tongue like extracts from the Hebrew Decalogue. Why don’t you stick to your last? You might say all the nice things you wished in Latin, Greek, French, German or Spanish, and I’d have to smirk and act as if I understood, and felt very much flattered.”
“And all this because I asked to accompany her on her walk!” he murmured as though to himself.
She gave him an upward look through her lashes that made him feel very peculiar, as she said sweetly, “Well, you know I didn’t mean it. I like to have nice things said to me.”
“By every one?” he queried idly, without looking at her.
“Well, no,” she admitted slowly.