A waiter stood at their table for a moment, deftly carving some new dish, and Brooks, leaning back in his chair, glanced critically at his companion.  In his judgment she represented something in womankind essentially of the durable type.  He appreciated her good looks, the air with which she wore her simple clothes, her large full eyes, her wide, gently-humorous mouth, and the hair parted in the middle, and rippling away towards her ears.  A frank companionable woman, whose eyes had never failed to look into his, in whom he had never at any time seen a single shadow of embarrassment.  It occurred to him just at that moment that never since he had known her had he seen her interested to the slightest degree in any man.  He looked back at her thoughtfully.  She was young, good-looking, too catholic in her views of life and its possibilities to refuse in any way to recognize its inevitable tendencies.  Yet he told himself complacently as he sipped his wine and watched her gazing with amused interest at the little groups of people about the place, that there must be in her composition a lack of sentiment.  Never for a second in their intercourse had she varied from her usual good-natured cheerfulness.  If there had been a shadow she had brushed it away ruthlessly.  Even on that terrible afternoon at Enton she had sat in the cab white and silent—­she had appealed to him in no way for sympathy.

The waiter retreated with a bow.  She shot a swift glance across at him.

“I object to being scrutinized,” she declared.  “Is it the plainness of my hat or the depth of my wrinkles to which you object?”

“Object!” he repeated.

“Yes.  You were looking for something which you did not find.  You were distinctly disappointed.  Don’t deny it.  It isn’t worth while.”

“I won’t plead guilty to the disappointment,” he answered, “but I’ll tell you the truth.  I was thinking what a delightfully companionable girl you were, and yet how different from any other girl I have ever met in my life.”

“That sounds hackneyed—­the latter part of it,” she remarked, “but in my case I see that it is not intended to be a compliment.  What do I lack that other girls have?

“You are putting me in a tight corner,” he declared.  “It isn’t that you lack anything, but nearly all the girls one meets some time or other seem to expect from one nice little speeches or compliments, just a little sentiment now and then.  Now you seem so entirely superior to that sort of thing altogether.  It is a ridiculously lame explanation.  The thing’s in my head all right, but I can’t get it out.  I can only express it when I say that you are the only girl I have ever known, or known of, in my life with whom sex would never interfere with companionship.”

She stirred her coffee absently.  At first he thought that she might be offended, for she did not look up for several moments.

“I’m afraid I failed altogether to make you understand what I meant,” he said, humbly.  “It is the result of an attempt at too great candour.”