pretty girls around you, I suppose you soon won't think of me any
longer?"

Paul waved the dreaded houris away as though they were midges. "I'm
sick of girls," he replied in a tone of such sincerity that Jane
tossed her head.

"Oh? Then I suppose you lump me with the rest and are sick of me
too?"

"Don't worry a fellow," said Paul. "You're not a girl-not in that
sense, I mean. You're a pal."

"Anyway, they're lots prettier than what I am," she said defiantly.

He looked at her critically, after the brutal manner of obtuse
boyhood, and beheld an object quite agreeable to the sight. Her
Londoner's ordinarily colourless checks were flushed, her blue eyes
shone bright, her little chin was in the air and her parted lips
showed a flash of white teeth. She wore a neat simple blouse and
skirt and held her slim, half-developed figure taut. Paul shook his
head. "Jolly few of them--without grease-paint on."

"But you see them all painted up."

He burst into laughter. "Then they're beastly, near by! You silly
kid, don't you know? We've got to make up, otherwise no one in front
would be able to see our mouths and noses and eyes. From the front
we look lovely; but close to we're horrors."