[That gives her pause, the deliberate vagueness to his answer is just slightly unsettling, a tremble of unease in her slender shoulders—but after a fleeting instant, the darkness that passes over her is replaced by a fluttering giggle, as if sharing some private joke. Yes, surely, he must be joking—she chooses to believe that he must just be having a laugh with her.
But how she thinks of herself... Again, he gives her reason to hesitate. This mysterious, dark stranger is just full of surprises (not all of them pleasant, perhaps), and she is at a temporary loss for words. Her opinion is asked very rarely, and her opinion of herself rarest of all. Men have always smothered her with their own terms for her, both endearing and otherwise. The golden girl, the Louisville sweetheart, the dreamy, ditzy darling of the Buchanan lineage.]
I don't really know.
[She confesses, and written across her face is helpless honesty. The brilliance of her smile appears to have faded: far too somber a face to be making, at such a lavish party. And then, in a moment of mischievousness, she adds,]
no subject
But how she thinks of herself... Again, he gives her reason to hesitate. This mysterious, dark stranger is just full of surprises (not all of them pleasant, perhaps), and she is at a temporary loss for words. Her opinion is asked very rarely, and her opinion of herself rarest of all. Men have always smothered her with their own terms for her, both endearing and otherwise. The golden girl, the Louisville sweetheart, the dreamy, ditzy darling of the Buchanan lineage.]
I don't really know.
[She confesses, and written across her face is helpless honesty. The brilliance of her smile appears to have faded: far too somber a face to be making, at such a lavish party. And then, in a moment of mischievousness, she adds,]
It depends on who you ask.