held her feet.

"Oh, Mr. Witla!" she said gaily, holding out her smooth white arm on a
level with her eyes and dropping her hand gracefully. Her red lips were
parted, showing even white teeth, arching into a radiant smile. Her eyes
were quite wide as he remembered, with an innocent, surprised look in
them, which was wholly unconscious with her. If wet roses could outrival
a maiden in all her freshness, he thought he would like to see it.
Nothing could equal the beauty of a young woman in her eighteenth or
nineteenth year.

"Yes, quite, Mr. Witla," he said, beaming. "I thought you had forgotten.
My, we look charming this evening! We look like roses and cut flowers
and stained-glass windows and boxes of jewels, and, and, and----"

He pretended to be lost for more words and looked quizzically up at the
ceiling.

Suzanne began to laugh. Like Eugene, she had a marked sense of the comic
and the ridiculous. She was not in the least vain, and the idea of being
like roses and boxes of jewels and stained-glass windows tickled her
fancy.

"Why, that's quite a collection of things to be, isn't it?" she laughed,
her lips parted. "I wouldn't mind being all those things if I could,
particularly the jewels. Mama won't give me any. I can't even get a
brooch for my throat."

"Mama is real mean, apparently," said Eugene vigorously. "We'll have to
talk to mama, but she knows, you know, that you don't need any jewels,
see? She knows that you have something which is just as good, or better.
But we won't talk about that, will we?"

Suzanne had been afraid that he was going to begin complimenting her,
but seeing how easily he avoided this course she liked him for it. She
was a little overawed by his dignity and mental capacity, but attracted
by his gaiety and lightness of manner.

"Do you know, Mr. Witla," she said, "I believe you like to tease
people."

"Oh, no!" said Eugene. "Oh, never, never! Nothing like that. How could
I? Tease people! Far be it from me! That's the very last thing I ever
think of doing. I always approach people in a very solemn manner and
tell them the dark sad truth. It's the only way. They need it. The more
truth I tell the better I feel. And then they like me so much better for
it."

At the first rush of his quizzical tirade Suzanne's eyes opened
quaintly, inquiringly. Then she began to smile, and in a moment after he
ceased she exclaimed: "Oh, ha! ha! Oh, dear! Oh, dear, how you talk!" A
ripple of laught