"I don't want you to! I want--"

"Really, Mr. Gatewood, a rhapsody on a girl's mouth is proper in poetry,
but scarcely germane to the record of a purely business transaction.
Please answer the next question tersely, if you don't mind: 'Figure?'"

"Oh, I _do_ mind! I can't! Any poem is much too brief to describe her
figure--"

"Shall we say 'Perfect'?" asked the girl, raising her brown eyes in a
glimmering transition from vexation to amusement. For, after all, it
could be _only_ a coincidence that this young man should be describing
features peculiar to herself.

"Couldn't you write, 'Venus-of-Milo-like'?" he inquired. "That is
laconic."

"I could--if it's true. But if you mean it for praise--I--don't think
any modern woman would be flattered."

"I always supposed that she of Milo had an ideal figure," he said,
perplexed.

She wrote, "A good figure." Then, propping her rounded chin on one
lovely white hand, she glanced at the next question:

"Hands?"

"White, beautiful, rose-tipped, slender yet softly and firmly rounded--"