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 "I'll define it if you like," she rejoined, giving him a wan and rather wavering smile. "I told you I would never take you myself and I never shall. I know now that I'll never be married—never—not ever at all, Walter. And since I won't take you, myself, you want to know how it gets to be my affair that you may wish to marry someone else. How dare I warn you to keep away from another girl, against whom there's nothing in the world to be said except that she's in the very perfection of the peach-bloom age? Well, I do warn you, because I know what trouble I made for a few boys and men when I had that age, myself, and I dare the risk of what you'll think of me for my warning. You'll very likely only think me a jealous dog in the manger." She rose suddenly, went to the other end of the room and stood with her back to him. "Well, if you care to think it, go ahead and think it!"

"What do you want me to think?" he asked, not moving from his chair.

"Anything you like!"

His reddened brow was corrugated by a frown of reflection; he shook his head ruefully, baffled, and then he was startled for she turned and spoke sharply to him.