"Sit down," she invited the guest. "This is a fearful and wonderful time
to ask you to venture abroad in your dress clothes, but I wanted to see
you most particularly before the rest of the family comes down."
"You are a singularly beautiful woman," observed Darrow in a detached
manner, as he disposed his long form gracefully in the opposite armchair.
The girl looked at him sharply.
"That is intended as an excuse or explanation--not in the least as a
compliment," Darrow went on.
"You would not be so obliging, if I were not--beautiful?" shot back the
girl. "That is indeed not complimentary!"
"I should be exactly as obliging," amended Darrow lazily, "but I should
not feel so generally satisfied and pleased and rewarded in advance. I
should have more of a feeling of virtue, and less of one of pleasure."
"I see," said the girl, her brows still level. "Then I suppose you are
not interested in what I might ask you as one human being to another!"
"Pardon me, Helen," interrupted Darrow, with unusual decision. "That is
just what I am interested in--you as a human being, a delicious,
beautiful, feminine, human being who could mean half the created
universe to a lucky man."
"But not the whole--"
"No, not the whole," mused Darrow, relaxing to his old indolent attitude.
"You see," he roused himself to explain, "I am a scientist, for instance.
You could not be a scientist; you have not the training.
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