It simplifies the present for us, and that is what we are to discuss." "You are very, very beautiful, and young, and unhappy," he said irrelevantly, a darker glow in his cheeks.

She smiled serenely, without a trace of diffidence or protest.
"I can almost believe it, you say it so convincingly," she said.

For a moment she relaxed luxuriantly into an attitude of physical enjoyment of herself, surveying her toe-tips with a thoughtfulness that comprehended more; and then as abruptly came back to the business of the moment.

"You must not spoil it all by saying it too fervently," she went on with a smile of warning.

He gave a short laugh of confusion and sank back in the chair.
"You have never tried to make love to me," she went on.