ter number of
the women of the land. Then she told him to lie upon the sand again;
that she wanted to look at him. And he obeyed, machine-like.

She was in a fantastic mood assuredly. She watched him, her cheek
resting upon one little hand for a long time, a thoughtful look upon
her face. Then she broke out impetuously:

"How smooth and clean your face is! Do you--do you go to--you know
what I mean. Do you go to a barber every day?"

He answered that he shaved himself.

"Is it very hard?" she asked.

"Well, that depends."

She studied once more for a long time, then spoke again, on this
occasion blushing furiously:

"Grant, dear, I want to _do_ things for you always. I want to take
care of you. It seems to me that, some time, I might learn, you know.
It seems to me that some time I might almost"--with a little
gasp--"shave you."

He wanted to gather her up in his arms and smother and caress her,
after that climax of tender admission, but she waved her hand as she
saw him rising. He fell back then upon his ignoble habit of talking
vast science to her.

"My dear, that dream may, I hope, be realized. I'd rather have my face
slashed by you than be shaved by the most careful, conscientious and
silent barber in all Christendom, but shaving is a matter of much
gravity. It is not the removal of the beard which tests the intellect;
it is the sharpening of the razors."

"How is that, sir?"

"All razors are feminine, and things of moods. The razor you sharpen
to-day may not be sharp, though manipulated upon hone or strap with all
persistence and all skill. The razor you sharpen to-morrow may be far
more tractable. Furthermore, the razor which is comparatively dull
to-day may be sharp to-morrow, without further treatment."

She said that, in her opinion, that was nonsense, and that he was
trying to impose upon a friendless girl, because the topic was one of
which men would, ordinarily, have a monopoly, and regarding which they
would assume all wisdom, and, perhaps, make jests.

"I am in earnest," he said. "Razors have moods, and are known to sulk.
But science has solved the conundrum of their antics. It has been
discovered that whetting changes the location of the molecules of
metal, that there is frequently left what is not a perfect edge after
the supposed sharpening, but that, given time, the molecules will
readjust themselves, and the edge return. My dear, you are now, or at
least should be, a