As Other Men Are

Eve Malory Carew tilted her sweet pretty chin.

“It’s my hair,” she said.

“Exactly,” said Jeremy Broke. “That’s why to cut it would be so—so blasphemous. If it was anybody else’s, it’d be their funeral. But your hair’s a sort of national treasure, like Ann Hathaway’s Cottage or Arthur’s Seat—I mean, Leith Hill. It’s not really yours to cut.”

“It’s mine to brush,” said Eve: “and fix and do generally. If you had a beard——”

“That’s an idea,” said Broke. “If you cut your hair, I’ll grow a blinkin’ beard: a long, spade-shaped one—by way of protest.”

Eve laughed delightedly.

“But how,” she gurgled, “how would that affect me? If we kissed when we met, or always dined tête-à-tête. . . .”

“I trust,” said Jeremy stiffly, “that the indecent spectacle of an old friend gone wrong would twist the tail of your conscience. Besides, you wouldn’t like it when I accosted you in Bond Street, beard in hand.”

Miss Carew shuddered.

Then—

“Seriously, Jeremy, why shouldn’t I have it off? Listen. First, it would suit me. I went to see Sali to-day, and he said it’d look immense. It isn’t as if it were straight. It’s naturally curly, and I’d have it really well cut. Then, I go through such hell—hell, morning and night. I wish you could see it down. Then perhaps you’d realize what I mean.”