You are so lovely!"
"Please don't talk such nonsense to me," she rejoined. "I am not
lovely, and I know it. What is not true can not please anybody."
She spoke a little angrily now.
"I speak the truth," said Tom, quietly and earnestly. "Why should
you think I do not?"
"Because nobody ever said so before."
"Then it is quite time somebody should say so," returned Tom,
changing his tone. "It may be a painful fact, but even ladies
ought to be told the truth, and learn to bear it. To say you are
not lovely would be a downright lie."
"I wish you wouldn't talk to me about myself!" said Letty,
feeling confused and improper, but not altogether displeased that
it was possible for such a mistake to be made. "I don't want to
hear about myself. It makes me so uncomfortable! I am sure it
isn't right: is it, now, Mr. Helmer?"
As she ended, the tears rose in her eyes, partly from unanalyzed
uneasiness at the position in which she found herself and the
turn the talk had taken, partly from the discomfort of conscious
disobedience. But still she did not move.
"I am very sorry if I have vexed you," said Tom, seeing her
evident trouble. "I can't think how I've done it. I know I didn't
mean to; and I promise you not to say a word of the kind again--
if I can help it. But tell me, Letty," he went on again, changing
in tone and look and manner, and calling her by her name with
such simplicity that she never even noticed it, "do tell me what
you are reading, and that will keep me from _talking_ about
you--not from--the other thing, you know.
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