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 affair, if anything is." He reached for her as he saw her trembling. "Don't you let him bother you, Fidel."

She said, hiding her face: "That's nice."

"What?"

"When you call me Fidel."

"I always will, then."

She shook her head. "You don't so much, David." She got up from her knees. "I'll call Gertrude and tell her we won't go sailing. What shall we do to-night?"

That was it; what, better than sailing with the Vredicks, should she and he do to-night or any other night? A voice came cross his conscience: "I'm Alice." Always when he had happened to see Alice, or even when any round-about word of her reached him, he had told Fidelia; but he could not tell her how he had called Alice an hour ago. For he could not tell his wife it was merely a stupid accident; it had not been that; it had been wish for Alice then.

He said: "Don't call Gertrude; we'll go, Fidel."

So they had supper on the smooth deck of the I'll Show You which was scarcely tilted by the breeze as it sailed out into the lake; they had punch and iced champagne because George Vredick, who was a broker in unlisted stocks, wanted to celebrate a great killing he had made in rubber that day.

David drank a little, decidedly less than the other men; Fidelia merely sipped her champagne. After supper, the four men of the party smoked and two of the girls did. Fidelia was one of the two who did not for she cared little for smoking and David preferred her not to smoke. They all sang, rousingly: