"And to whom are you going to be married? To the same girl? Do you know, I think she is not worthy of you?" "She is not," he acquiesced, and she, for a passing moment, seemed disconcerted. "Yet she is," he continued, cheered by this slight triumph, "the most persistent, industrious and deserving of all the young persons who, attracted by my great position and vast wealth, are pressing themselves or being pressed by designing relatives upon my notice." His hostess laughed softly. "Make allowances for them," she pleaded. "You know very few men can rival your advantages. The sixth son of a retired yet respectable stock broker, and an income of four thousand a year derived from a small but increasing--shall we say increasing--?" "Diminishing; incredible as it may seem, diminishing." "From a small but diminishing law practice. And with these you must mention your greatest charm." "Which is?" "Your humility, your modesty, your lack of self-assertiveness. Do you think she recognizes that? It is so difficult to fully appreciate your humility." Jimmie grinned. "She's up to it," said he. "She knows all about it. She's as clever, as keen, as clear-sighted." "Is she, perhaps, pleasing to the eye?" asked Miss Knowles idly. "Clever women are often so--well, so--" Jimmie gazed at her across the little tea-table. He filled his eyes with her. And, since his heart was in his eyes, he filled that, too. After a moment he made solemn answer: "She is the most beautiful woman God ever made." "Ah, now," said Miss Knowles, returning her cup to its fellows and turning her face, and her mind, more entirely to him, "now we grow interesting. Describe her to me." "Again?" Jimmie plagiarized. "Yes, again. Tell me, what is she like?" "She is like," he began so deliberately that his hostess, leaning forward, hung upon his words, "she is exactly like--nothing." The hostess sat back. "There was never anything in the least like her. To begin with, she is fair and young and slim. She is tall enough, and small enough and her eyes are gray and black and blue." "She sounds disreputable, your paragon." "And her eyes," he insisted, "are gray in the sunlight, blue in the lamplight, and black by the light of the moon." "And in the firelight?" He rose to kick the logs into a greater brightness; and when he had studied her glowing face until it glowed even more brightly, he answered: "In the firelight they are--wonderful. She has--did I tell you?--the whitest and smallest of teeth."