"You know that girl—the cashier, I mean—is extraordinarily pretty. Have you noticed her, Warner?"
Warner turned again:
"I've been looking at her. She's rather thickly tinted, isn't she?"
"Yes. But in spite of the paint. She has a charmingly shaped head. Some day she'll have a figure."
"Oh, yes; figures and maturity come late to that type.... If you'll notice, Halkett, those hands of hers are really exquisite. So are her features—the nose is delicate, the eyes beautifully drawn—she's all in good drawing—even her mouth, which is a little too full. As an amateur, don't you agree with me?"
"Very much so. She's a distinct type."
"Yes—there's a certain appeal about her.... It's odd, isn't it—the inexplicable something about some women that attracts. It doesn't depend on beauty at all."
Halkett sipped his Moselle wine.
"No, it doesn't depend on beauty, on intelligence, on character, or on morals. It's in spite of them—in defiance, sometimes. Now, take that thin girl over there; her lips and cheeks are painted; she has the indifferent, disenchanted, detached glance of the too early wise. The chances are that she isn't respectable. And in spite of all that, Warner—well—look at her."
"I see. A man could paint a troubling portrait of her—a sermon on canvas."