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 tered, then finished huskily—"my gratitude for it."

Then, though only during an instant, her eyes wavered from their careless-seeming gayety. There was a flickering in her expression as of some portended sharp change in it; but the instant passed. "Well, I'm glad," she said; and she flashed to him the side-long insouciant glance, merry and brilliant, of the confessed coquette admitting the worst of her coquetries and impudently claiming the worst of them to be pretty. "Of course Arturo Liana was with me there, and he felt a little gratitude, too, Mr. Orbison!"

Orbison's troubled expression altered into something like a wondering dismay; but he contrived to laugh. "Everybody was grateful. You mustn't think I took so beautiful a thing as that all to myself just because you said it was!"

Claire seemed to be as light-headed as she was light-hearted. "Murder! What I said? My mother tells me, I don't know how many times a day, that if I had to be held responsible for everything I say, I'd be guillotined! But don't you think I didn't mean a great big part of it, for you, Mr. Orbison; I did, honestly! Honestly, I thought of you while I was singing it and wondered if you liked it, and that's true anyhow, absolutely!"