“I hope,” I said,” you won’t mind a personal remark.”

“I’ll try not to,” she said.” I can’t promise until I hear it.”

“I’ll take a chance. In case you have caught me staring at you I want to explain why.”

“I don’t know.” She was smiling.” Maybe you’d better not. Maybe it would let me down. Maybe I’d rather think you stared just because you wanted to.”

“You can think that too. If I hadn’t wanted to I wouldn’t have stared. But the idea is, I was trying to catch you looking the same twice. If you turn your head only a little one way or the other it’s a different face. I know there are people with faces that do that, but I’ve never seen one that changes as much as yours. Hasn’t anyone ever mentioned it to you?”

She parted her lips, closed them, and turned right away from me. All I could do was turn back to my plate, and I did so, but in a moment she was facing me again. “You know,” she said, “I’m only nineteen years old.”

“I was nineteen once,” I assured her.” Some ways I liked it, and some ways it was terrible.”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed.” I haven’t learned how to take things yet, but I suppose I will. I was silly—just because you said that. I should have just told you yes, someone did mention that to me once. About my face. More than once.”

So I had put my foot in it. How the hell are you going to be tactful when you don’t know what is out of bounds and what isn’t? Merely having a face that changes isn’t going to get a girl a baby. I flopped around. “Well,” I said,” I know it was a personal remark, and I only wanted to explain why I had stared at you. I wouldn’t have brought it up if I had known there was anything touchy about it. I think you ought to get even. I’m touchy about horses because once I caught my foot in the stirrup when I was getting off, so you might try that. Ask me something about horses and my face will change.”