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FLAMING

YOUTH

“Well?”? ‘Don’t let’s talk.

I want to just remember.” He nodded and she leaned to him momentarily again, kitten-like, caressing, grateful for his understanding. He, too, was glad of the respite, for, man of the world

though he was, he had been strangely, unexpectedly shaken. It was Pat who, long minutes later, sighed and broke the silence with the hoarse, enticing sweetness of her tones. “What did you do it for, Mr. Scott?” “I? Do what?” He was surprised by the directness

of the attack. “Oh, well! I, then. You know. What did you let me do it for?” He made no reply. In his stillness was a sense of expectancy to which she responded. “IT warned you what music did to me. But you—you needn’t have let me——” She paused. “Do you like me a little?” she murmured. “Yes. <A little.” “Only a little?” she teased, half child demanding the comfort of affection, half conscious coquette. than that?”

“Not more

“Perhaps a little more,” he smiled. “But not half as much as you do Con,” she said deliberately.

He was silent, his attention apparently engrossed in a heavy truck which gave them bare passing room. “Do you?” she insisted, daring greatly. “Do I what?”

“Like me as much as you do Con?

Half as much, I

mean.” “Tf I did do you think I should tell you?”