"Ah, you don't know me,"
he replied, in a voice milder than his look had promised.
"Because I'm rough and practical, you mustn't think I don't
know good things when I see them. Why, all the world
is going to have living proof very soon"--he paused,
and sent a smile surcharged with meaning toward the silent
member of the trio--"living proof that I'm the greatest
judge of perfection in beauty of my time."
He lifted his glass as he spoke, and the ladies accepted
with an inclination of the head, and a touch of the wine at
their lips, his tacit toast. "Oh, I think I do know you,"
said Celia Madden, calmly discursive. "Up to a certain point,
you are not so unlike other men. If people appeal to
your imagination, and do not contradict you, or bore you,
or get in your way, you are capable of being very nice
indeed to them. But that isn't a very uncommon quality.
What is uncommon in you--at least that is my reading--is
something which according to circumstances may be nice,
or very much the other way about. It's something
which stands quite apart from standards of morals
or ethics or the ordinary emotions. But I don't know,
whether it is desirable for me to enter into this extremely
personal analysis."
"Oh yes, go on," Thorpe urged her. He watched her face
with an almost excited interest.
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