Part 8 (1/2)
”Why?”
”What an inquisitor you are, to be sure!”
”But tell me,” she pleaded.
”Why?” he demanded, in his turn.
She lowered her lashes, looking at her quiet hands.
”Because I want so much to know.”
His smiling eyes were probing her. ”Tell me why.”
She raised her lashes suddenly and returned his gaze. There was a wistful sincerity in her eyes.
”I wish to know,” she said, slowly, ”so that I may not be like them.”
For a moment he regarded her silently. Then he spoke. ”My reasons are valid. They giggle; they flirt; and they put candy in my pockets.”
”And you don't like women at all?”
”I like nice, sensible women, who wear square-toed shoes, and who don't distort themselves with corsets.”
The girl put out her pretty foot in its pointed and high-heeled slipper.
Then she shook her head with mock seriousness.
”I don't suppose you think that very sensible?” she remarked.
He looked at it critically.
”Well, hardly. No, it isn't in the least sensible, but it--it is very small, isn't it?”
”Oh yes,” responded Mariana, eagerly. She felt a sudden desire to flaunt her graces in his face. He was watching the play of her hands, but she became conscious, with an aggrieved surprise, that he was not thinking of them.
”But you don't like just mere--mere women?” she asked, gravely.
”Are you a mere--mere woman?”
”Yes.”
”Then I like them.”
The radiance that overflowed her eyes startled him.
”But you aren't just a mere--mere man,” she volunteered.
”But I am--a good deal merer, in fact, than many others. I am a shape of clay.”