Like others before him, Beverly Plank made the mistake that the sweetness of voice and the friendliness of eyes were particularly personal to him, in tribute to qualities he had foolishly enough hitherto not suspected in himself.

Now he suspected them, and whatever of real qualities desirable had been latent in him also appeared at once, confirming his modest suspicions.

Certainly he was a wit! Was not this perfectly charming girl's responsive and delicious laughter proof enough?
Certainly he was epigrammatic! Certainly he could be easy, polished, amusing, sympathetic, and vastly interesting all the while.

Could he not divine it in her undivided attention, the quick, amused flicker of recognition animating her beautiful face when he had turned a particularly successful phrase or taken a verbal hurdle without a cropper?
And above all, her kindness to him impressed him; her natural and friendly pleasure in being agreeable.

Here he was already on an informal footing with one of the persons of whom he had been most shy and uncertain.