So the unbeautiful get many more lovers
than the beauties; only, as there are more of them, their lovers are
spread thinner and do not make so much show.
The young master stood looking at Helen Darley with a kind of tender
admiration. She was such a picture of the martyr by the slow social
combustive process, that it almost seemed to him he could see a pale
lambent aureole round her head.
"I did not see you at the great party last evening," he said,
presently.
She looked up and answered, "No. I have not much taste for such large
companies. Besides, I do not feel as if my time belonged to me after it
has been paid for. There is always something to do, some lesson or
exercise,--and it so happened, I was very busy last night with the new
problems in geometry. I hope you had a good time."
"Very. Two or three of our girls were there. Rosa Milburn. What a
beauty she is! I wonder what she feeds on! Wine and musk and chloroform
and coals of fire, I believe; I didn't think there was such color and
flavor in a woman outside the tropics."
Miss Darley smiled rather faintly; the imagery was not just to her
taste: _femineity_ often finds it very hard to accept the fact of
_muliebrity_.
"Was"----?
She stopped short; but her question had asked itself.
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