Gerard smiles contemptuously. "I do believe that you women lose the sight of your eyes when you look at one another."
"What do you mean?" she asks, with some animation. "Is it possible that you don't agree with me as to her being quite passée?"
"I think her, as I always thought her," he answers, steadily, "the loveliest woman I ever beheld; a little additional thinness or paleness does not affect her much. Hers is not mere skin beauty: as you say, tastes differ, and I like those black women."
"That is a civil speech to make to me!" she answers, reddening—an insult to her appearance or her clothes being the one weapon that has power to pierce the scales of her armour of proof.
St. John smiles again. "When we engaged to marry one another, did we also engage to think each other the handsomest specimens of the human animal Providence ever framed?"
"It is, at least, not usual for a man to express an open preference for another woman to the girl to whom he is engaged."
"It is no question of preference," he answers, quietly. "I had no thought of drawing any comparison between you and Miss Craven at the moment; I was not thinking of you."
"You said she was the loveliest girl you had ever seen!" objects Constance, pouting.
"So I did—I do think her so," he rejoins, calmly. "If there is some defect in my eyes, hindering me from seeing things as they are, it is my misfortune, not my fault. Cannot you be content," he asks, banteringly, "with being the next loveliest?"
She turns away her head, too indignant to answer.