“I tell you I would!” snapped the Younger Man.

“I tell you—­you wouldn’t!” said the Older Man.

“Prove it!” challenged the Younger Man.

“It’s already proved!” confided the Older Man.  “Ha!  I know your type!” he persisted frankly.  “You’re the sort of fellow, at a party, who just out of sheer fool-instinct will go trampling down every other man in sight just for the sheer fool-joy of trying to get the first dance with the most conspicuously showy-looking, most conspicuously artificial-looking girl in the room—­who always and invariably ’bores you to death’ before the evening is over!  And while you and the rest of your kind are battling together—­year after year—­for this special privilege of being ‘bored to death,’ the ‘real girl’ that you’re asking about, the marvelous girl, the girl with the big, beautiful, unspoken thoughts in her head, the girl with the big, brave, undone deeds in her heart, the girl that stories are made of, the girl whom you call ’improbable’—­is moping off alone in some dark, cold corner—­or sitting forlornly partnerless against the bleak wall of the ballroom—­or hiding shyly up in the dressing-room—­waiting to be discovered!  Little Miss Still-Waters, deeper than ten thousand seas!  Little Miss Gunpowder, milder than the dusk before the moon ignites it!  Little Miss Sleeping-Beauty, waiting for her Prince!”

“Oh, yes—­I suppose so,” conceded the Younger Man impatiently.  “But that Miss Von Eaton—­”

“Oh, it isn’t that I don’t know a pretty face—­or hat, when I see it,” interrupted the Older Man nonchalantly.  “It’s only that I don’t put my trust in ’em.”  With a quick gesture, half audacious, half apologetic, he reached forward suddenly and tapped the Younger Man’s coat sleeve.  “Oh, I knew just as well as you,” he affirmed, “oh, I knew just as well as you—­at my first glance—­that your gorgeous young Miss Von Eaton was excellingly handsome.  But I also knew—­not later certainly than my second glance—­that she was presumably rather stupid.  You can’t be interesting, you know, my young friend, unless you do interesting things—­and handsome creatures are proverbially lazy.  Humph!  If Beauty is excuse enough for Being, it sure takes Plainness then to feel the real necessity for—­Doing.

“So, speaking of hats, if it’s stimulating conversation that you’re after, if you’re looking for something unique, something significant, something really worth while—­what you want to do, my young friend, is to find a girl with a hat you’d be ashamed to go out with—­and stay home with her!  That’s where you’ll find the brains, the originality, the vivacity, the sagacity, the real ideas!”