"It is a good climate," admitted Miss. Ryan, with unenthusiastic acquiescence; "but we are not so proud of that as we are of the good looks of the Californian women. Don't you think the women are handsome?"
Faraday looked into her clear and earnest eyes.
"Oh splendid," he answered, "especially their eyes."
Miss. Ryan appeared to demur to this commendation. "It's generally said by strangers that their figures are unusually handsome. Do you think they are?"
Faraday agreed to this too.
"The girls in the East," said Miss. Ryan, sitting upright with a creaking sound, and drawing her gloves through one satin-smooth, bejeweled hand, "are very thin, aren't they? Here, I sometimes think"—she raised her eyes to his in deep and somewhat anxious query—"that they are too fat?"
Faraday gallantly scouted the idea. He said the California woman was a goddess. For the first time in the interview Miss. Ryan gave a little laugh.
"That's what all you Eastern men say," she said. "They're always telling me I'm a goddess. Even the Englishmen say that."
"Well," answered Faraday, surprised at his own boldness, "what they say is true."
Miss. Ryan silently eyed him for a speculating moment; then, averting her glance, said, pensively: "Perhaps so; but I don't think it's so stylish to be a goddess as it is to be very slim. And then, you know——" Here she suddenly broke off, her eyes fixed upon the crowd of ladies that blocked an opposite doorway in exeunt. "There's mommer. I guess she must be going home, and I suppose I'd better go too, and not keep her waiting."