"Can't you show yourself to me as well as to Poleon?" he said.
"Certainly not!" she declared. "He bought this dress for me, and I put it on to please him." Now she was herself again, for some note in the Lieutenant's voice gave her dominance over him. "After he sees it I will take it off, and--"
"Don't--don't take it off--ever," said Burrell. "I thought you were beautiful before, because of your quaintness and simplicity, but now--" his chest swelled--"why, this is a breath from home. You're like my sister and the girls back in Kentucky, only more wonderful."
"Am I?" she cried, eagerly. "Am I like other girls? Do I really look as if I'd always worn clothes like these?"
A smile broke over her grave face, assuming a hundred different shades of pleasure and making a child of her on the instant; all her reserve and hauteur vanished. Her warmth and unaffected frankness suffused him, as she stood out, turning to show the beauties of her gown, her brown hands fluttering tremulously as she talked.
"It's my first party-dress, you know, and I'm as proud of it as Molly is of her rubber boots. It's too big in here and too small right there; that girl must have had a bad chest; but otherwise it fits me as if it had been made for me, doesn't it? And the shoes! Aren't they the dearest things? See." She held her skirts back, showing her two feet side by side, her dainty ankles slim and shapely in their silk.
"I know; and look at the heels. I couldn't walk a mile to save my life."
"And they will come off if they get wet."
"They don't wear as well as moccasins." Both laughed delightedly till he broke in, impulsively:
"Oh, girl, don't you know how beautiful you are?"
"Of course I do!" she cried, imitating his change of voice; then added, naively, "That's why I hate to take it off."
"Where did you learn to wear things like that?" he questioned. "Where did you get that--well--that air?"
"It seems to me I've always known. There's nothing strange about it. The buttons and the hooks and the eyes are all where they belong. It's instinct, I suppose, from father's side--"
"Probably. I dare say I should understand the mechanism of a dress-suit, even if I'd never seen one," said the man, amused, yet impressed by her argument.