"Yes, you!" "Well," she replied, after a second's pause given to inspection of him, "_this_ is open derision!" "It is perfectly true," was his response; "and it is true for good reasons. Your strength would lie in the very fact that you would be entirely unlike your co-laborers in the field. You have a finished little air of ingenuousness which would be your fortune." She shook her head with a pretty gesture. "No," she said. "I am very clever, and of course you cannot help observing it, but I am not clever enough for that." He gave her a glance at once curious and admiring. "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "it is my belief you are clever enough for anything." "Richard," she said, "shall I tell you a secret?" "Yes." "And you will bury it in the innermost recesses of your soul, and _never_ divulge it?" "Certainly." "And brace yourself for a shock when I reveal it to you?" "Yes." "Well, here it is! My cleverness is like what you--and two or three other most charming people--are good enough to call my prettiness. It is a delusion and a snare!" "Come!" he said. "You are attempting to deceive me." "No," she answered. "I am attempting to undeceive you. I am not really pretty or clever at all, and it has been the object of my life to prevent its being detected." She opened her eyes in the most charmingly ingenuous manner and nodded her head. "I discovered it myself," she said, "long ago,--comparatively early in life,--and resolved to conceal it. And nothing but the confidence I repose in you would have induced me to mention it." "Well," he replied, "you have concealed it pretty well under the circumstances." "Ah!" she said, "but you don't know what a burden it is to carry about, and what subterfuges I have to resort to when I seem on the very verge of being found out. There is Larry, for instance,--I am almost sure that Larry suspects me, especially when I am tired, or chance to wear an unbecoming gown. You know how particular I am about my gowns? Well, that is my secret. I haven't an attraction, really, but my gowns and my spirits and my speciousness. The solitary thing I do feel I have reason to pride myself on is that I am bold enough to adapt my gowns in such a way as to persuade you that I am physically responsible for the color and shape of them. You fancy you are pleased with me when you are simply pleased with some color of which I exist on the reflection or glow. In nine cases out of ten it is merely a matter of pale blue or pink, and silk or crèpe or cashmere; and in the tenth it is nothing but spirits and speciousness." "Oh," he said, "there is no denying that you would make a wonderful lobbyist."