“Now you’re to imagine me ugly and just the same as I am now.”

“You wouldn’t be the same.”

“Yes, I should. I should be the same woman, with the same heart and feelings and desires and things as I have now. Only the face would be altered.”

“Well, go ahead, but don’t pinch so, old girl.”

“I pinch you to make you exert your mind. Now tell me truly—truly; would you love me as you do now, would you be jealous of me, would you—”

“I say, wait a bit! Don’t drive on at such a rate. How ugly are you?”

“Very ugly; worse than Miss Filberte.”

“Miss Filberte’s not so bad.”

“Yes, she is, Fritz, you know she is. But I mean ever so much worse; with a purple complexion, perhaps, like Mrs. Armington, whose husband insisted on a judicial separation; or a broken nose, or something wrong with my mouth—”

“What wrong?”