"Why, I am describing a woman who is my ideal of beauty--" But she had already gone to the next question: "Teeth ?" "P-p-perfect p-p-pearls!" he stammered.

The laughing red mouth closed like a flower at dusk, veiling the sparkle of her teeth.
Was he trying to be impertinent?
Was he deliberately describing her?
He did not look like that sort of man; yet _why_ was he watching her so closely, so curiously at every question?
Why did he look at her teeth when she laughed?
"Eyes ?" Her own dared him to continue what, coincidence or not, was plainly a description of herself.
"B-b-b--" He grew suddenly timorous, hesitating, pretending to a perplexity which was really a healthy scare.

For she was frowning.
"Curious I can't think of the color of her eyes," he said; "is--isn't it ?" She coldly inspected her pad and made a correction; but all she did was to rub out a comma and put another in its place.

Meanwhile, Gatewood, chin in his hand, sat buried in profound thought.

"_Were_ they blue ?" he murmured to himself aloud, "or _were_ they brown?
Blue begins with a _b_ and brown begins with a _b_.