Out of the Past — page 86: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Out of the Past. 83 me real beauty, if | were a man. It is you have it, and, of the two, it is you I should love.” She turned from the reflection with a grimace and en- countered the pair of wide-open eyes fastened upon her. “You don’t like what I say. But it does no harm. I am terribly frank, gauche, I know: but it is all true. The trouble is we are afraid of the truth. JI might be jealous of you—but, bless you, | am not. I should simply adore your beauty very soon—perhaps I do already.” “My dear Mme. Vignaud, please do not say such things. They are excessively uncomfortable. It seems to me a poor topic.” “T suppose it is,’ said Saline, meekly sitting down. “May we talk of something else? How do you like Paris? Are we as bad as you expected? I would really like to know. You seem so different from us. Are all Ameri- cans like your” “How do you mean?” ‘Are you all serious and self-contained and tantalizinely pretty, and do you all tell the truth?” “Why do you think I tell the truth?” “You can’t help it because—well—because it is you.” Rose concluded that she had to do with a woman who had never left her childhood, but answered as politely as she could: EORNICOOOKS.€O