"You are a singularly beautiful woman," observed Darrow in a detached manner, as he disposed his long form gracefully in the opposite armchair.
The girl looked at him sharply.
"That is intended as an excuse or explanation—not in the least as a compliment," Darrow went on.
"You would not be so obliging, if I were not—beautiful?" shot back the girl. "That is indeed not complimentary!"
"I should be exactly as obliging," amended Darrow lazily, "but I should not feel so generally satisfied and pleased and rewarded in advance. I should have more of a feeling of virtue, and less of one of pleasure."
"I see," said the girl, her brows still level. "Then I suppose you are not interested in what I might ask you as one human being to another!"
"Pardon me, Helen," interrupted Darrow, with unusual decision. "That is just what I am interested in—you as a human being, a delicious, beautiful, feminine, human being who could mean half the created universe to a lucky man."
"But not the whole—"
"No, not the whole," mused Darrow, relaxing to his old indolent attitude.
"You see," he roused himself to explain, "I am a scientist, for instance.
You could not be a scientist; you have not the training."
"Nor the brains," interposed Helen Warford, a trifle bitterly.