"A face isn't meant to be a living-room, anyway, Barton, but just a
piazza where the seething, preoccupied soul can dash out now and then
to bask in the breeze and refreshment of sympathy and appreciation.
Surely then--it's no particular personal glory to you that your friend
Miss Von Eaton's energy cavorts perpetually in the gold of her hair or
the blue of her eyes, because rain or shine, congeniality or
noncongeniality, her energy hasn't any other place to go. But I tell
you it means some compliment to a man when in a bleak, dour, work-worn
personality like the old Botany dame's for instance he finds himself
able to lure out into occasional facial ecstasy the _amazing_ vitality
which has been slaving for Science alone these past fifty years.
Mushrooms are what the old Botany dame is interested in, Barton.
Really, Barton, I think you'd be surprised to see how extraordinarily
beautiful the old Botany dame can be about mushrooms! Gleam of the
first faint streak of dawn, freshness of the wildest woodland dell,
verve of the long day's strenuous effort, flush of sunset and triumph,
zeal of the student's evening lamp, puckering, daredevil smile of
reckless experiment--"

"Say! Are you a preacher?" mocked the Younger Man sarcastically.

"No more than any old man," conceded the Older Man with unruffled
good-nature.

"Old man?" repeated Barton, skeptically. In honest if reluctant
admiration for an instant, he sat appraising his companion's
extraordinary litheness and agility. "Ha!" he laughed. "It would take
a good deal older head than yours to discover what that Miss
Edgarton's beauty is!"