“Digestible, then? No, my friend. I do not think she is very digestible either for you or for me. We get pains inside and little nourishment.”
“Who would not?” I replied. “If a girl is beautiful, charming, not too chary of her favors, and yet not inartistically lavish; if she knows how to let a smile spring gently from an artless dimple, how to aim a bright eye and shake a light curl; and if she is not too fully occupied with others to spare one an hour or two of these charms, who would not like her? Personally, I should adore her--while it lasted.”
“Do you really think she isn't all she seems?” he asked, in a doleful voice.
“On the contrary, I think she is more; considerably more. My dear Lumme, I have studied this girl dispassionately, critically, as I would a work of art offered me for sale, and I pronounce my opinion in three words--she is false! I counsel you, my friend, to leave with me this morning.”
“And I should advise you to take this _gentleman's_ advice,” exclaimed a voice behind us, in a tone that I cannot call friendly. We turned, possibly with more precipitation than dignity, to see Miss Amy herself within five paces of us. Evidently she had just appeared round the edge of the castellated hedge, though how long she had been standing on the other side I cannot pretend to guess. Long enough, at any rate, to give her a very flushed face and an eye that sparkled more brightly than ever. Indeed, I never saw her to more advantage.
“How dare you!” she cried, tears threatening in her voice; “how _dare_ you--talk of me so!”
“Mademoiselle--” I began, with conciliatory humility.
“Don't speak to me!” she interrupted, and turned her brown eyes to Lumme. Undoubted tears glistened in them now.
“So you have been listening to this--this _person's_ slanders? And you are going away now because you have learned that I am false? I have been offered for sale like a work of art! He has studied me dispassionately!”
Here she gave me a look whose wrathful significance I will leave you to imagine.
“Go! Go with him! You may be sure that _I_ sha'n't ask either of you to stay!”
Never had two men a better case against a woman, and never. I am sure, have two men taken less advantage of it.