way to recognize its inevitable
tendencies. Yet he told himself complacently as he sipped his wine and
watched her gazing with amused interest at the little groups of people
about the place, that there must be in her composition a lack of
sentiment. Never for a second in their intercourse had she varied from
her usual good-natured cheerfulness. If there had been a shadow she had
brushed it away ruthlessly. Even on that terrible afternoon at Enton
she had sat in the cab white and silent--she had appealed to him in no
way for sympathy.

The waiter retreated with a bow. She shot a swift glance across at him.

"I object to being scrutinized," she declared. "Is it the plainness of
my hat or the depth of my wrinkles to which you object?"

"Object!" he repeated.

"Yes. You were looking for something which you did not find. You were
distinctly disappointed. Don't deny it. It isn't worth while."

"I won't plead guilty to the disappointment," he answered, "but I'll
tell you the truth. I was thinking what a delightfully companionable
girl you were, and yet how different from any other girl I have ever met
in my life."

"That sounds hackneyed--the latter part of it," she remarked, "but in my
case I see that it is not intended to be a compliment. What do I lack
that other girls have?

"You are putting me in a tight corner," he declared. "It isn't that you
lack anything, but nearly all the girls one meets some time or other
seem to expect from one nice little speeches or compliments, just a
little sentiment now and then. Now you seem so entirely superior to
that sort of thing altogether. It is a ridiculously lame explanation.
The thing's in my head all right, but I can't get it out. I can only
express it when I say that you are the only girl I have ever known, or
known of, in my life with whom sex would never interfere with
companionship."

She stirred her coffee absently. At first he thought that she might be
offended, for she did not look up for several moments.

"I'm afraid I failed altogether to make you understand what I meant," he
said, humbly. "It is the result of an attempt at too great candour."

Then she looked up and smiled at him graciously enough, though it seemed
to him that she was a little pale.

"I am sure you were delightfully lucid," she said. "I quite understood,
and on the whole I think I agree with you. I don't think that the
sentimental side of me has been properly developed. By the bye, you
were