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 afraid I've thus relapsed into a habit of primitive frankness of speech lost by our own race some thousands of years ago. Can you stand it?"

"I think perhaps," she said, "I can even equal it."

At that, his youthful eyes glinted forth sparklings of pleasure. "Well, suppose you give me a sample of your own."

"Of my own frankness?" She laughed, and then, with a light audacity, she said, "I saw you as you came in, Mr. Peale, and humbly hoped for a little notice." And, though she should have blushed to say it, this was the mere truth: she had observed the advent of the distinguished gentleman, and had instantly thought, recognizing him, "There's a man I'd like to know!" The reason she should have blushed was that this thought of hers had been in her head during her rejection of Walter Rackbridge: the unfortunate Walter might well have been entitled to all of her thoughts for those few crucial moments. But no one had quite all of Claire's thoughts at any moment whatever; she was never wholly free of that "double" sense of hers, that curse of "seeing" herself as somebody else, even when she truly suffered. And thus, even while she had rejected Walter and had said to herself of Sherman Peale, "There's a