What the Asmussen girls liked above all was to have their bodies admired.
"When I turn this way, isn't the set of my shoulders classic?"
"If I weren't so bashful, I'd take off my shirt and show you my hips. They are like a goddess's."
They made less frequent appeals for criticism of their features.
"We've gotten so many compliments about our good looks that we can't have any doubts on that score."
Nevertheless when cold weather set in, and necessitated the wearing of woolen scarfs over their heads, they did not scorn to discuss the truly Greek way their hair had of growing low on their foreheads, or the seductive curves of their mouths.
They could also be severely self-critical.
"Our eyes are not beautiful, we know. Yours, for instance, are much lovelier. But whether _you_ cast sheep's eyes at anybody or not, it's all the same. Now, if _we_ just chuck a little sidelong glance--you'd think no one could possibly notice it--why, in a jiffy they're after us like mad."
Their iridescent, cattish eyes would twinkle with the pleasant sense of unbounded power and triumph over the weakness of that strong animal man.
The advice they dispensed liberally to Lilly might be summed up in one sentence: "Do what you please, but don't surrender yourself."
They laid no restraint upon themselves in retailing spicy stories, which set Lilly's pulse to bounding, and in which they proved their absolute seriousness in the observance of this motto.
They manifested a strong sensual craving. One of them once remarked:
"My highest ideal is to be queen of the bees, but to have no children."
The other, who seemed inclined to ethical speculations, rejoined vivaciously:
"My highest ideal is to be a nun and horribly immoral."
She pursued the theme, entering into all details after the manner of the Renaissance narrators, while Lilly's pious soul trembled and shuddered.
Their libertinism of thought notwithstanding, all their hopes and dreams centered about marriage.
To marry, as quickly as possible and as advantageously as possible, was salvation, career, a specific for all ills, earthly bliss, and eternal happiness.
"That is, he must be _old_, he must be _rich_, and he must be _stupid_."
This trinity embodied all their demands of fate. As others invest their husbands-to-be with supernatural virtues, these girls revelled in picturing their future spouses' infirmities and in recounting the tricks they meant to play upon them by virtue of their bodily and spiritual superiority.