"I wonder." "Well, we shall see." His friend seemed to wish not to dogmatise.
"SHALL we ?" Mitchy considered it again in its high suggestive light.
"You will--but how shall I ?" Then he caught himself up with a blush.
"What a beastly thing to say--as if it were mere years that make you see it!" His companion this time gave way to the joke.

"What else can it be--if I've thought so ?" "Why, it's the facts themselves, and the fine taste, and above all something qui ne court pas les rues, an approach to some experience of what a lady IS." The young man's acute reflexion appeared suddenly to flower into a vision of opportunity that swept everything else away.
"Excuse my insisting on your time of life--but you HAVE seen some ?" The question was of such interest that he had already begun to follow it.
"Oh the charm of talk with some one who can fill out one's idea of the really distinguished women of the past! If I could get you," he continued, "to be so awfully valuable as to fill out mine!" His fellow visitor, on this, made, in a pause, a nearer approach to taking visibly his measure.

"Are you sure you've got an idea ?" Mr.
Mitchett brightly thought.

"No.

That must be just why I appeal to you.
And it can't therefore be for confirmation, can it ?" he went on.