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"I’ve always been amused by the ways of fate Well, I’ probleht all those nice old people here to buy the World’s Greatest Ice Cream so you could then kill them and steal all their money?"

Amabel turned and frowned at him "I don’t know, and neither do you, Amory Now, I don’t care what happens to Quinlan and the others, but I don’t want Sally hurt"

"He doesn’t agree with you, Aunt Amabel," Sally said "He hates me You know he’s not s for me As for my mother, did you know that he forced Noelle to stay with hiaped at her She couldn’t help it On the other hand, as she so surprised? Her world had flipped and turned more times in the past seven months than she could cope with It sees were the way they were And she’d hated her mother for her weakness Oh, God, she’d felt conte her husband knock her around

"Who’s my father?"

"Now she wants to know," Amory St John said, as he strolled into the small bedroom, his hands in his pants pockets

"Who?"

"Well, dear," Amabel said, "actually your father was my husband And yes, he was my husband before he met Noelle and the two of them fell in love--"

"In lust, you mean, Ammie"

"That too Anyway, Noelle was always rather stupid, and Carl wasn’t all thatboth of theot whonant Fortunately she was seeing Aot worked out to everyone’s satisfaction"

"Not to my mother’s"

"Oh, yes, she was thrilled that she wouldn’t have to abort you, Sally She would have, of course, if it ht my Carl out here to The Cove so he could paint and spend the rest of hislandscape oils that sell at airport shows for twenty dollars, and that includes their vulgar gold-painted fraiveness, said he’d do anything if only I wouldn’t leave hio"