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 guess I ought to know who I sang for, oughtn't I?" The words were almost upon her lips; but she withheld them. "All right, then!" she thought. "You wouldn't see it when I took the trouble to show you, I'm not going to be banal enough to tell you; so you can just find it out for yourself! It gives me a secret that I know and you don't; and that's an advantage over you, anyhow." This was her feeling, and it appeared to imply that she engaged in some form of contest. All her affairs with gentlemen, in fact, seemed to involve this sense of contest, which was so persistent that it could be present even now, when the gentleman was an invalid.

"You don't answer me," he said.

She smiled vaguely. "Well—didn't everyone there last night have the feeling that the song and all the rest of it had a special meaning for himself alone? I'm sure I did. That's what I tried to convey by saying it was meant for you. Every one of us could think so, couldn't we?"

"Dear me!" he said. "I suppose we could if we had the necessary amount of egoism. But when that wonderful lady sang last night I got entirely away from my own egoism for a while. You see it's rather necessary for me to think of myself as little as possi-