“You haven’t met me,” said her soft voice. Her blue eyes added, “Oh, but you’ve missed a great deal!”... “You met my sister, Jasmine, last night. I was sick with lettuce poisoning,” went on her soft voice, and her eye continued, “and when I’m sick I’m sweet--and when I’m well.” “You have made an enormous impression on me,” said John’s eyes, “and I’m not so slow myself”--“How do you do?” said his voice. “I hope you’re better this morning.”--“You darling,” added his eyes tremulously. John observed that they had been walking along the path. On her suggestion they sat down together upon the moss, the softness of which he failed to determine. He was critical about women. A single defect--a thick ankle, a hoarse voice, a glass eye--was enough to make him utterly indifferent. And here for the first time in his life he was beside a girl who seemed to him the incarnation of physical perfection. “Are you from the East?” asked Kismine with charming interest. “No,” answered John simply. “I’m from Hades.” Either she had never heard of Hades, or she could think of no pleasant comment to make upon it, for she did not discuss it further. “I’m going East to school this fall,” she said. “D’you think I’ll like it? I’m going to New York to Miss Bulge’s. It’s very strict, but you see over the weekends I’m going to live at home with the family in our New York house, because father heard that the girls had to go walking two by two.” “Your father wants you to be proud,” observed John. “We are,” she answered, her eyes shining with dignity. “None of us has ever been punished. Father said we never should be. Once when my sister Jasmine was a little girl she pushed him downstairs and he just got up and limped away. “Mother was--well, a little startled,” continued Kismine, “when she heard that you were from--from where you _are_ from, you know. She said that when she was a young girl--but then, you see, she’s a Spaniard and old-fashioned.” “Do you spend much time out here?” asked John, to conceal the fact that he was somewhat hurt by this remark. It seemed an unkind allusion to his provincialism. “Percy and Jasmine and I are here every summer, but next summer Jasmine is going to Newport. She’s coming out in London a year from this fall. She’ll be presented at court.” “Do you know,” began John hesitantly, “you’re much more sophisticated than I thought you were when I first saw you?” “Oh, no, I’m not,” she exclaimed hurriedly. “Oh, I wouldn’t think of being. I think that sophisticated young people are _terribly_ common, don’t you? I’m not all, really. If you say I am, I’m going to cry.” She was so distressed that her lip was trembling. John was impelled to protest: “I didn’t mean that; I only said it to tease you.”