She did not, however, stay a second longer than was absolutely necessary, and she was perfectly composed and said good morning in her most impersonal tone.

At least Thurston hoped she had no tone more impersonal than that.
He decided that she had really beautiful eyes and hair; after she had gone he looked up at the picture, told himself that it did not begin to do her justice, and sighed a bit.

He was very dull, and even her companionship, he thought, would be pleasant if only she would come down off her pedestal and be humanly sociable.
When he wrote a story about a fellow being laid up in the same house with a girl--a girl with big, blue-gray eyes and ripply brown hair--he would have the girl treat the fellow at least decently.

She would read poetry to him and bring him flowers, and do ever so many nice things that would make him hate to get well.

He decided that he would write just that kind of story; he would idealize it, of course, and have the fellow in love with the girl; you have to, in stories.