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 did not repine. She teased and taunted; she whistled a plaintive air, La Paloma, over and over, with a sort of defiant, cynical challenge.

"Make me happy, happy, happy," she seemed to taunt. "Is this being happy?" her thin, whistling lips inquired.

Jay was not happy; but her whistling snatched him from his own to her discontent. In the midst of a measure, she stopped short and called, "Y'there?"

He leaped up and went to her. "You were 'sleep?" she asked him.

"Just about."

"You weren't."

"No; I wasn't," he admitted.

Her eyes were doing their dancing, daring, dancing above, below, about and about his.

"So y'heard me come in."

"Yes. And I saw you; I wanted to watch you."

"What d'you feel, watching me?"

"Love."

"Love for who?"

"Love for you."

"Liar," she cast at him coolly and kissed him. "You don't love me. I hope to God I don't love you."

He jerked a little from her. "I hope to high heaven, there's more than this coming to me," she explained, seizing him. "And it may be from you, Jay. Nobody else gives me more kick."

"All right," he said.

"D'you know we're happy, marvelously happy? Y'ought to read the New York papers."

"About us? Are they here?"