Madge laughed again merrily, saying, “You are the most obvious man I ever met. Now why did you say that?”
“I thought you were making breakfast an excuse,” I said, “because you didn’t like the subject.”
“Yes, I was,” said Madge, frankly. “Tell me about the girl you are engaged to.”
I was so taken aback that I stopped in my walk, and merely looked at her.
“For instance,” she asked coolly, when she saw that I was speechless, “what does she look like?”
“Like, like—” I stammered, still embarrassed by this bold carrying of the war into my own camp,—“like an angel.”
“Oh,” said Madge, eagerly, “I’ve always wanted to know what angels were like. Describe her to me.”
“Well,” I said, getting my second wind, so to speak, “she has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. Why, Miss Cullen, you said you’d never seen anything so blue as the sky yesterday; but even the atmosphere of ‘rainless Arizona’ has to take a back seat when her eyes are round. And they are just like the atmosphere out here. You can look into them for a hundred miles, but you can’t get to the bottom.”
“The Arizona sky is wonderful,” said Madge. “How do the scientists account for it?”
I wasn’t going to have my description of Miss Cullen side-tracked, for, since she had given me the chance, I wanted her to know just what I thought of her. Therefore I didn’t follow lead on the Arizona skies, but went on,—