Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/243

 "Thank you," he bowed. "I wish I knew as much about you."

"Don't you?" she asked, rolling her eyes up and gazing at him, reproachfully.

"Well—you see—of course, I know what a fine"

"That'll do!" she shook her head. "You needn't say it; when you know that much about a woman, you know all there is worth knowing—I mean under existing social conditions. But why shouldn't I be like you? Why shouldn't a woman be known by her business, her affairs, her profession, as well as a man? When you know a woman's good looking—that's all there is to her!"

"You're a new woman?" he asked.

"Now you're asking questions," she turned his query.

Nevertheless, her statements had awakened a new line of inquiry in his mind. He looked at the books in the two sets of shelves.

"I never had a chance to think," she shook her head. "I never had a chance to be alone—so I started down the river. I wanted to be where I could find a perspective—where it would be quiet."

"So you dropped down the Mississippi?"

"Yes," she admitted, with a laugh.

At the laugh, Urleigh started; the laugh reminded him of something, and it suggested the voice, too, so