"Cleverness is not what I expect or have ever expected of you," he said. "You have not as yet had to endure the misrepresentation and wrong which frequently make women clever,--the life of solitude and despised dreams which moves a woman to put on man's armour and sally forth to fight the world and conquer it, or else die in the attempt. How few conquer, and how many die, are matters of history. Be glad you are not a clever woman, Lucy!--for genius in a woman is the mystic laurel of Apollo springing from the soft breast of Daphne. It hurts in the growing, and sometimes breaks the heart from which it grows." She answered nothing. He was talking in a way she did not understand,--his allusion to Apollo and Daphne was completely beyond her. She smothered a tiny yawn and wondered why he was so tedious. Moreover, she was conscious of some slight chagrin, for though she said, out of mere social hypocrisy, that she was not clever, she thought herself exceptionally so. Why could he not admit her abilities as readily as she herself admitted them? "No, you are not clever," he resumed quietly. "And I am glad you are not. You are good and pure and true,--these graces outweigh all cleverness." Her cheeks flushed prettily,--she thought of a girl who had been her schoolmate at Brighton, one of the boldest little hussies that ever flashed eyes to the light of day, yet who could assume the dainty simpering air of maiden--modest perfection at the moment's notice. She wished she could do the same, but she had not studied the trick carefully enough, and she was afraid to try more of it than just a little tremulous smile and a quick downward glance at her fan. Helmsley watched her attentively--almost craftily. It did not strain his sense of perspicuity over much to see exactly what was going on in her mind. He settled himself a little more comfortably in his chair, and pressing the tips of his fingers together, looked at her over this pointed rampart of polished nails as though she were something altogether curious and remarkable. "The virtues of a woman are her wealth and worth," he said sententiously, as though he were quoting a maxim out of a child's copybook. "A jewel's price is not so much for its size and weight as for its particular lustre. But common commercial people--like myself--even if they have the good fortune to find a diamond likely to surpass all others in the market, are never content till they have tested it. Every Jew bites his coin. And I am something of a Jew. I like to know the exact value of what I esteem as precious. And so I test it." "Yes?" She threw in this interjected query simply because she did not know what to say. She thought he was talking very oddly, and wondered whether he was quite sane. "Yes," he echoed; "I test it. And, Lucy, I think so highly of you, and esteem you as so very fair a pearl of womanhood, that I am inclined to test you just as I would a priceless gem. Do you object?"