"You could! You could!" she exclaimed banteringly, as if she were teasing him for such a good opinion of himself. "Yes, you bet I could!" he declared. "Even my nose?" she said, with a defiant sort of scepticism. Before she could prevent him he had thumb and forefinger on that nose and was pinching it and feeling of it in a way that made her cry out, "Stop!" indignantly and draw away. "Perfectly easy! You have the cartilage for a Number One nose," he went on, his professional eagerness undisturbed. "All that happened was that the good Lord intended to make you fine-looking--and only the nose stands in the way--and was called off on a hurry case before He had sculped down the material. There's too much of it!" "I know it!" proclaimed Helen defiantly. Bricktop was making gestures in his habitual fashion to indicate what he would do with that curse of hers if he were to have a chance. "Why, I wouldn't need to leave any scar except just in the dip of the nostril and under the point, where they wouldn't show." His professional ambition was excited; a greedy look was in his eyes. "Shame! Absolute shame not to do it! Unfair to your friends, unfair to yourself--to everybody!" "Of all the ridiculous----" gasped Helen, breaking again into laughter of the kind that hides that undercurrent of seriousness which often gives to badinage its cutting edge. "Come on! It's a cinch!" pleaded Bricktop. "Just bandages over your nose for two weeks, then bandages off and everybody saying what a good-looking woman Helen is. Come on!" People would say that she was good-looking, all for the ridiculous business of making some cuts in her nose! Imagine her going about while her nose was bandaged! Preposterous! But in America, where nobody knew her? Some little scars that nobody would notice! "Can you get me leave? Can I go away somewhere?" she asked. "Yes. You are attached to my shop, now." "And then to America!" she exclaimed. "What! To America! You!" "I'm going to become a citizeness." "Good!" cried Bricktop. Back of his enthusiasm was more than welcome to his native land. It meant that she could not be heart-broken because there was another in her place--or, didn't it mean that? "When will you do the starting?" she asked. "The sooner the better!" "Now!" answered Bricktop. "And I'll send you away in my car--needn't go to bed!" "I'll run and pack my things--and I'll say good-bye to Cousin Phil, for I shan't see him again!" She was proud of the matter-of-course manner of the remark. This perfectly fantastic business of having her nose remodelled had put her in the mood which should make light of everything.