"'I shouldn't have said it if I didn't think so,' said Jerry quickly.
"Something in the positive way he spoke pleased her again for she smiled bewitchingly, effacing me completely. I think we're going to be very good friends,' she said, moving up on the divan a little nearer to him. 'Of course, it takes more than the aesthetic appeal to bring two sensible people together,' she murmured. 'It is not the eye which must catch the reflection, but the mind. You've thought a good deal--and studied? Men are so vapid nowadays.' She sighed. 'I hope some day you will think I'm clever enough for you to talk to me about things.'
"She was playing up to him, you see, I think that Jerry is the most extraordinary male animal that has ambled into her vision this winter.
"'I'd be glad to. Of course you're different from anything I ever saw before,' said Jerry. 'I've always thought of nature as the most beautiful thing in the world. Now I seem to be just as sure that art is.'
"That rather took her aback, but she didn't turn a hair.
"'Not superfluous, perhaps. Merely artificial.'
"'Yes,' bluntly! 'I don't understand it at all. But it's singularly effective. It's like night with only one star visible--'
"'The more visible,' I put in, 'for being Venus.'
"She looked at me slantways. 'I'm sorry you said that, Mr. Ballard. Venus is not my goddess. Diana--'
"'Pallas Athene, the guardian and guide of heroes,' she countered neatly.
"'I'm glad you don't like Venus, Miss Van Wyck,' put in Jerry quickly. 'She made a lot of trouble, just because she was pretty. Diana--she _was_ the right sort, no sentimental rot for her.'
"'Of course. Sentiment _is_ rot and so sloppy.'
"Jerry laughed ingenuously. 'That's a good word,' he said. 'Imagine Diana being sloppy.'
"'Women aren't nearly as sentimental as they used to be. As a woman's weapon hysteria has gone to the dust heap. Women are learning independence. You believe in women thinking for themselves, don't you?'
"'Of course,' said Jerry. 'But they don't, do they?'
"'_I_ do. It's one of my gospels to be self-sufficient. Don't you believe me?'
"'I'd like to, you're so lovely to look at. I'd like to think you were perfect in everything.'
"He refreshed her. Her artificialities one by one were falling away from her like discarded garments. And yet I was not sure that it wasn't artifice that was discarding them. She was very clever. I might have guessed it, had I noticed earlier the volumes by Freud and Strindberg on the little ebony side table."