“You must have imagined it,” I said stiffly.
“I should like to know,” she said, with the air of one trying to solve a knotty problem, “I should like to know how many men are as blind as you.”
“You are quite beyond me, Miss Trevor,” I answered; “may I request you to put that remark in other words?”
“I protest that you are a most unsatisfactory person,” she went on, not heeding my annoyance. “Most abnormally modest people are. If I were to stick you with this hat-pin, for instance, you would accept the matter as a positive insult.”
“I certainly should,” I said, laughing; “and, besides, it would be painful.”
“There you are,” said she, exultingly; “I knew it. But I flatter myself there are men who would go into an ecstasy of delight if I ran a hat-pin into them. I am merely taking this as an illustration of my point.”
“It is a very fine point,” said I. “But some people take pleasure in odd things. I can easily conceive of a man gallant enough to suffer the agony for the sake of pleasing a pretty girl.”
“I told you so,” she pouted; “you have missed it entirely. You are hopelessly blind on that side, and numb. Perhaps you didn't know that you have had a hat-pin sticking in you for some time.”
I began feeling myself, nervously.
“For more than a month,” she cried, “and to think that you have never felt it.” My action was too much for her gravity, and she fell back against the skylight in a fit of merriment, which threatened to wake her father. And I hoped it would.