all." She spoke with no trace of vanity, merely with a frankness which
had yet to learn the arts of coyness.

"No," counseled her new adviser, "don't do anything of the sort. Simply
wait and after awhile everyone will be telling you."

"But nobody ever told me before that having eyes that didn't match was
pretty," she argued.

"Some day, if you happen to live where men make fine phrases, which
after all may not be such a blessing," he assured her, "they will
whisper to you that you are a miraculous color-scheme. It's a bit hard
to express, but I can give you examples--" He broke off suddenly and
laughed at himself. "After all," he began again in a different voice,
"what's the use? I forgot that the things I should compare you with are
all things you haven't seen. They would mean nothing."

"Tell me, anyhow," she commanded.

"Very well. There is a style of architecture in the Orient: The Temple
of Omar at Jerusalem has it. The Taj Mahal has it. Interiors crusted
with the color of gems and mosaics and rich inlay; the Italian
renaissance has it; splashed from a palette that knew no stint--no
economy. It's a brilliant, triumphant sort of pæan in which the notes
are all notes of color. You have it, too--and now I'm going to drive on.
But don't forget that it's easier to be kind when people call you
spindle-legs than it will be when they come with offerings of flattery."

"You must have seen a lot of things." Mary Burton's voice was that of
admiring wonder, and the young man's face became grave, almost pained