"But how quickly you forgot it!"
"Oh, no. I only want YOU to say what kind of a girl you are."
She mocked him. "'I don't know; I've often wondered!' What kind
of a girl does Mildred tell you I am? What has she said about me
since she told you I was 'a Miss Adams?'"
"I don't know; I haven't asked her."
"Then DON'T ask her," Alice said, quickly.
"Why?"
"Because she's such a perfect creature and I'm such an imperfect
one. Perfect creatures have the most perfect way of ruining the
imperfect ones."
"But then they wouldn't be perfect. Not if they----"
"Oh, yes, they remain perfectly perfect," she assured him.
"That's because they never go into details. They're not so
vulgar as to come right out and TELL that you've been in jail for
stealing chickens. They just look absent-minded and say in a low
voice, 'Oh, very; but I scarcely think you'd like her particularly';
and then begin to talk of something else right away."
His smile had disappeared. "Yes," he said, somewhat ruefully.
"That does sound like Mildred. You certainly do seem to know
her! Do you know everybody as well as that?"
"Not myself," Alice said. "I don't know myself at all. I got to
wondering about that--about who I was--the other day after you
walked home with me.
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