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She earing, over the smooth, dead-white skin of her neck, a collar of superb diamonds and aquamarines--almost an effrontery, as the latter were even darker than her eyes; yet the strange and effective hare they were new, and that she had picked them up at Tiffany's; and he mentally sketched out the value of the diamonds, a trifle surprised, because Leila Mortimer had carefully informed him about the condition of the Caithness exchequer

That youthful matron herself appeared in a few rant, exotic brightness, and Plank for the first tiorous, youthful incarnation of Life itself, in contrast to Agatha's alreeted him not only without a trace of eay confidence that he scarcely recognised in her the dry-eyed, feverish woo, whose very lips shrank back, scorched by the torrent of her own invective

And so they drove the three short blocks to the Page's in their hired livery; the street was inadequate for the crush of vehicles; and the glittering pressure within the house was outrageous; all of which confused Plank, who becaot in--how they atha froht be--he did not understand very clearly The house was large, strange, full of strangers He atte for a small rococo reception-room where he ree, and had on another occasion perspired freely under the arrogant and strabisood lady had really rather liked him; he never suspected it

But he couldn't find the rococo roonise it So many people--so many, many people whoh-bred faces hard as dia his without a softening of recognition; clean-cut, attractivethe and repassing, with here an extended gloved ar of ca, a capricious bending forward for a whisper, a compli hirance, and left him more absolutely alone than he had ever been in all his life