“So you came to see where the fascination resides? Well, you’ve seen!”
My young lady raised her fine eyebrows. “Do you mean in his bad faith?”
“In the extraordinary effects of it; his possession, that is, of some quality or other that condemns us in advance to forgive him the humiliation, as I may call it, to which he has subjected us.”
“The humiliation?”
“Why, mine, for instance, as one of his guarantors, before you as the purchaser of a ticket.”
“You don’t look humiliated a bit, and if you did I should let you off, disappointed as I am; for the mysterious quality you speak of is just the quality I came to see.”
“Oh, you can’t ‘see’ it!” I exclaimed.
“How, then, do you get at it?”
“You don’t! You mustn’t suppose he’s good-looking,” I added.
“Why, his wife says he’s lovely!”
My h
