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 kneel to her, or she must be able to ignore him, and evidently she's not able."

"I'm afraid she loves him. You don't know Nick. He's different. She must love him."

"Christabel only loves one person, and it's the love of a lifetime."

"Not Nick? Do you mean Curtis?" But even Ellen, who in her heart believed people must love each other if they were married, didn't believe he meant Curtis.

"Don't be silly, Ellen. Christabel loves Christabel."

"Oh! I never thought of that. But then—why does she bother with other people? Why is she trying to take Nick from me?"

"She is a sea-anemone. She takes the things that feed her; she ejects everything else. A sea-anemone looks like a delicate flower, pink or cream or lilac, with its tentacles moving as gently as petals in a breeze, but it can send out a shower of stinging tiny darts, and it can grasp what it wants."