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 She was silent beside him; vaguely he could see her face, her hair, her neck, the round of her bosom, the slenderness of her waist. He used to have his arm about her, when they were alone in the quiet like this; he used to know the feel of her against him, her lips on his, her arm about his neck, holding him down to her for another kiss.

He said: "Alice!"

"What?"

"How about you?" he demanded; and the outrightness of it caught breath from her. She gasped, then after waiting a few seconds she said: "There's nothing new about me, David."

"There's got to be, Alice!"

"What," she said and repeated it, "what ought to be new for me?"

He did not answer and she asked: "You mean I ought to care for somebody else? That's it? You'd be happier if I could?"

He could not say it; what he said was: "I want you to be happy, Alice. I want that more than anything else."

"More than anything else you've not already got, David," she corrected him, quietly. "Maybe that's true. For you've got almost everything you wanted, haven't you? You've made money; you're doing well; and you have Fidelia. I bother you sometimes; that's all. But you shouldn't bother about me; I don't want you to. What can you do for me now, David? Besides, I'm all right."

"You're not."

That stopped her short; it silenced her and seemed