e as of litheness and supple
strength, an air of independence, frankness, and--I say it
again--impudence.

"Well!" she said coolly as van Manderpootz presented me. "So you're the
scion of the N. J. Wells Corporation. Every now and then your escapades
enliven the Paris Sunday supplements. Wasn't it you who snared a million
dollars in the market so you could ask Whimsy White--?"

I flushed. "That was greatly exaggerated," I said hastily, "and anyway I
lost it before we--uh--before I--"

"Not before you made somewhat of a fool of yourself, I believe," she
finished sweetly.

Well, that's the sort she was. If she hadn't been so infernally lovely,
if she hadn't looked so much like the face in the mirror, I'd have
flared up, said "Pleased to have met you," and never have seen her
again. But I couldn't get angry, not when she had the dusky hair, the
perfect lips, the saucy nose of the being who to me was ideal.

So I did see her again, and several times again. In fact, I suppose I
occupied most of her time between the few literary courses she was
taking, and little by little I began to see that in other respects
besides the physical she was not so far from my ideal. Beneath her
impudence was honesty, and frankness, and, despite herself, sweetness,
so that even allowing for the head-start I'd had, I fell in love pretty
hastily. And what's more, I knew she was beginning to reciprocate.

That was the situation when I called for her one noon and took her over
to van Manderpootz's laboratory. We were to lunch with him at the
University Club, but we found him occupied in directing some experiment
in the big laboratory beyond his personal one, untangling some sort of
mess that his staff had blundered into. So Denise and I wandered back
into the smaller room, perfectly content to be alone together. I simply
couldn't feel hungry in her presence; just talking to her was enough of
a substitute for food.

"I'm going to be a good writer," she was saying musingly. "Some day,
Dick, I'm going to be famous."

Well, everyone knows how correct that prediction was. I agreed with her
instantly.

She smiled. "You're nice, Dick," she said. "Very nice."

"Very?"

"_Very!_" she said emphatically. Then her green eyes strayed over to the
table that held the idealizator. "What crack-brained contraption of
Uncle Haskel's is that?" she asked.

I explained, rather inaccurately, I'm afraid, but no ordinary engineer
can follow the ramifications