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She stood silent, resting her thin elbows on the lass behind her One of the locks of her chignon had becoard and al that question to May Do you?"

He gave a reckless shrug "It's too late to do anything else"

"You say that because it's the easiest thing to say at this moment--not because it's true In reality it's too late to do anything but e'd both decided on"

"Ah, I don't understand you!"

She forced a pitiful s it "You don't understand because you haven't yet guessed how you've changed things forbefore I knew all you'd done"

"All I'd done?"

"Yes I was perfectly unconscious at first that people here were shy of ht I was a dreadful sort of person It seems they had even refused to meet me at dinner I found that out afterward; and how you'd o with you to the van der Luydens'; and how you'd insisted on announcing your engageht have two families to stand by h

"Just iine," she said, "how stupid and unobservant I was! I knew nothing of all this till Granny blurted it out one day New York si ho lad to see ," she continued, "I felt there was no one as kind as you; no one who gavewhat at first seeood people didn't convince me; I felt they'd never been tempted But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands--and yet you hated the things it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference That hat I'd never known before--and it's better than anything I've known"

She spoke in a low even voice, without tears or visible agitation; and each word, as it dropped fro lead He sat bowed over, his head between his hands, staring at the hearthrug, and at the tip of the satin shoe that showed under her dress Suddenly he knelt down and kissed the shoe