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 her shoes: she must undress, then dress for a dinner. "Dress, undress, dress, undress!" she murmured wretchedly, half-aloud. "Undress, then dress again. And what the devil is it all about?"

She had taken off one shoe; she held it in her hand and sat staring at it, her head bent over it, until she noticed a tiny drop of water upon the shining black surface of its long, curved heel;—a tear had fallen there without her being aware of it in her eye.

She hurled the pretty shoe across the room, so that it struck noisily against the wall. "Oh, my gosh!" she whispered in sharp despair. "Twenty-five! I can't stand it and it can't be stopped! Nothing in the world can stop it! Twenty-five!"