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Rh in your paper—head over ears—I didn’t like to disturb you."

"You look lovely this morning," Denis exclaimed. It was the first time he had ever had the courage to utter a personal remark of the kind.

Anne held up her hand as though to ward off a blow. "Don’t bludgeon me, please." She sat down on the bench beside him. He was a nice boy, she thought, quite charming; and Gombauld’s violent insistences were really becoming rather tiresome. "Why don’t you wear white trousers?" she asked. "I like you so much in white trousers."

"They’re at the wash," Denis replied rather curtly. This white-trouser business was all in the wrong spirit. He was just preparing a scheme to manoeuvre the conversation back to the proper path, when Mr. Scogan suddenly darted out of the house, crossed the terrace with clockwork rapidity, and came to a halt in front of the bench on which they were seated.

"To go on with our interesting conversation about the cosmos," he began, "I become more and more convinced