"Why hasn't Mr. Reynolds taught her?" she exclaimed, with just a trace of deprecation in her voice. "He has been over there so long, living in the same house. It's a shame that he has not directed her mind so as to awaken some----" she stopped short and a little color flushed her cheeks. "Oh, Reynolds sees nothing of her fine points," Moreton hastened to say without choice of words. "He's a Southerner, don't you know, and considers her poor white trash--that's the phrase here. He thinks it absurd that a gentleman should look at such a girl long enough to form any opinion as to the question of her beauty." The conversation was broken in upon and ended at this point by some trivial turn of the evening's happenings, and soon after Reynolds and Moreton took their leave. They walked toward the hotel, each silently revolving in his mind that part of his experience at the banker's house which had chanced to most deeply impress him. Reynolds, in fact, was scarcely conscious of his companion's presence, so full was he of many other indeterminate but wholly pleasing plans for making Miss Noble happy with his dogs and gun when they should meet at General DeKay's plantation. Moreton had lighted a cigarette and pulled his hat down over his eyes. "This girl of White's--how old is she, Reynolds?" he presently inquired, in a tone so abrupt that his companion looked up as if startled. "She's scarcely a woman yet, is she?" Reynolds did not answer promptly, but kept his eyes on Moreton's face while they walked two or three paces. "Oh, the devil, what do I know or care about her?" he at length said. "You'd better go out and interview her. She seems to have tangled your fancy." The words look brutal, but his voice and manner were merely indifferent and light, with a touch of good-humored raillery. "She does stay in my head somehow," Moreton frankly replied. "And I confess that it amazes me to know that you have never discovered what deuced physical perfection she has. You needn't try to make me believe in your obtuseness, however: I know you too well, don't you know." Reynolds laughed, and laying his hand on Moreton's arm, said: "You have happened to see her at some exceptional angle and with an artist's eye. Poor little thing, it is a small measure that fills her life. Hers is a hopeless lot. Let's choose a better subject. Now there's Miss Noble." Moreton did not respond promptly, but looked rather searchingly at his friend. He almost resented the democratic freedom that linked so readily and intimately the names of Milly White and Cordelia Noble. Presently he said: "Miss Noble is an exceptional American girl. She has all the naïveté and freshness of the country without any trace of its deuced vulgarity." "Your long residence of two months in this great country fully equips you for criticism," replied Reynolds with mock gravity.