"I'd know they weren't true."
"Even if you did know that, they'd make a difference," she said.
"Oh, yes, they would! It's too bad, but we don't like anything
quite so well that's had specks on it, even if we've wiped the
specks off;--it's just that much spoiled, and some things are all
spoiled the instant they're the least bit spoiled. What a man
thinks about a girl, for instance. Do you want to have what you
think about me spoiled, Mr. Russell?"
"Oh, but that's already far beyond reach," he said, lightly.
"But it can't be!" she protested.
"Why not?"
"Because it never can be. Men don't change their minds about one
another often: they make it quite an event when they do, and talk
about it as if something important had happened. But a girl only
has to go down-town with a shoe-string unfastened, and every man
who sees her will change his mind about her. Don't you know
that's true?"
"Not of myself, I think."
"There!" she cried. "That's precisely what every man in the
world would say!"
"So you wouldn't trust me?"
"Well--I'll be awfully worried if you give 'em a chance to tell
you that I'm too lazy to tie my shoe-strings!"
He laughed delightedly. "Is that what they do say?" he asked.
"Just about! Whatever they hope will get results.
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