Carmel smiled. What a strange, self-centered, egotistical little creature he was! So this was what became of infant prodigies.... They dried up into dusty intellect, lived for intellect alone; became a species of hermit living in social poverty in the cave of their own skulls! “I cannot,” she said, “fancy you in any relation which remotely approximated social.” “H’m!” said Professor Pell. CHAPTER VI It was on the morning following the issuance of the second publication of the _Free Press_ under Carmel’s editorship that she became uneasily aware of a marked scrutiny of herself by Evan Bartholomew Pell. There was nothing covert about his study of her; it was open and patent and unabashed. He stared at her. He watched her every movement, and his puckered eyes, wearing their most studious expression, followed her every movement. It was the first sign of direct interest he had manifested in her as a human being--as distinct from an employer--and she wondered at it even while it discomfited her. Even a young woman confident in no mean possession of comeliness may be discomfited by a persistent stare. It was not an admiring stare; rather it was a researchful stare, a sort of anatomical stare. Being a direct young person, Carmel was about to ask him what he meant by it, when he spared her the trouble. “Er--as I was approaching the office this morning,” he said, in an especially dry and scholarly voice, “I chanced to overhear a young man make the following remark, namely: ‘Mary Jenkins is a pretty girl.’... Now it is possible I have encountered that expression on numerous occasions, but this is the first time I have become conscious of it, and curious concerning it.” “Curious?” “Precisely.... As to its significance and--er--its causes. I have been giving consideration to it. It is not without interest.” “Pretty girls,” said Carmel, somewhat flippantly, “are always supposed to be of interest to men.” “Um!... I have not found them so. That is not the point. What arrested my thought was this: What constitutes prettiness? Why is one girl pretty and another not pretty? You follow me?” “I think so.” “Prettiness, as I understand it, is a quality of the personal appearance which gives to the beholder a pleasurable sensation.” “Something of the sort.” “Ah.... Then, what causes it? It is intangible. Let us examine concrete examples. Let us stand side by side Mary Jenkins, who is said to possess this quality, and--shall we say?--Mrs. Bogardus, who is reputed not to possess it. Why is one pretty and the other quite the opposite of pretty?” He shook his head. “I confess I had never become consciously aware of this difference between women....” “_What?_” He opened his eyes in mild surprise at the force of her exclamation.