"You want everybody to look at you?"
"Of course I do! Is it sinful? Oh, I get so impatient with all of you, with your good taste and your delicacy, and your insupportable dulness. When you admire a woman, you think it impertinent to tell her she's beautiful; when you have good looks, you carry yourselves as though you were ashamed."
And in a bold moment he replied:
"Yet you would give your soul to have no drop of foreign blood in your veins!"
"I?" she cried, her eyes flashing with scorn. "I'm proud of my Eastern blood. It's not blood I have in my veins, it's fire—a fire of gold. It's because of it that I have no prejudices, and know how to enjoy my life."
James smiled, and did not answer.
"You don't believe me?" she asked.
"No!"
"Well, perhaps I should like to be quite English. I should feel more comfortable in my scorn of these regimental ladies if I thought they could find no reason to look down on me."
"I don't think they look down on you."