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 "Had you neither of you the slightest idea of loyalty to Veronica?"

Penelope ignored him. She leant suddenly forward, crimson-cheeked, and kissed Veronica.

"Oh, my dear," she said, "did you think that because you couldn't care about Victor nobody else could? Do you expect him to go on giving you everything when you've got nothing to give him?"

They looked at her, dazzled by a flash of comprehension. When she rose from between them she left a gap, a gap she knew to be unbridgeable for both. They were face to face with the hideous simplicity of life. She had upset their bowl and left the two poor gold-fish gasping in an inclement air.

"Now at last you two have got each other," she cried, smiling at them from the threshold. "Nothing more to bother or disturb you. Just be as happy and as thankful as you can!"

They sat in silence till the last ironical echo died away. Then "Don't go!" they cried in unison.

But she was gone.