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 hospital on the road to the sea," he said. "It seems to me you might be more concerned with him than with other people's opinion of you."

Claire stepped back from him so quickly and awkwardly that it was almost as if she staggered, while her right arm and shoulder oddly made a semblance of the gesture of one who strives to shield his head from harm. And with that she began to weep aloud. "Oh!" she said. "I see! You hate me for—for not wanting you to think I'm just a little fool! Well—all right!" She began to walk away; but she did not go all the distance to the hotel doorway. She stopped, came back toward Orbison; and, in a broken voice, pathetically sweet, like that of a quietly sobbing child, "I don't care!" she said. "You—you did like one thing about me. I never meant to tell you, but you did like one thing I did. I did it for you. You said—you said it gave you the—the loveliest moment in the—in the greatest hour of beauty you'd ever known. It was—it was I that sang at the Greek theatre for you. And anyway, you did say—you did say you liked that!"

Then, her slender shoulders heaving with the sobs that came faster and more convulsively as she went, she ran to the doorway and disappeared within that