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 FLAMING

YOUTH

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petween us,” she said moodily. “I did meet him, though. [t was accidental at first, for I never meant to see him

again after I married Jim. After that we met once in a while, for walks and in places like the skating rink. That was all there was to it, but Jim found it out and used it te

blackmail me and hold me to the marriage. White slave stuff, on the respectable side! But Bobs won’t do any-

thing,” she added dully.

“You'll see.”

Pat caught her in a sudden, reassuring hug. “Leave it to me,” was her commonplace but confident rejoinder to this baring of a woman’s self-wrought and therefore doubly grim tragedy. Having carefully rehearsed her form of attack upon the family physician Pat went to his bungalow. “Why the face so solemn, Infant?” he greeted her. “T’ve got something serious to say to you, Bobs.” “What devilment have you been up to now?” “Tt isn’t me,” returned Pat, with her usual superiority to the laws of grammar. “It’s Dee.” “Hello! His expression changed. “Anything wrong?” “Yes, She’s going to have a baby.” “Dee,” he murmured, “a mother.” He lost himself in musing, seeming to forget Pat’s presence. “But she doesn’t want to be a mother.” “Eh?” Osterhout quite jumped, startled by the emphasis which Pat gave to the assertion. “Oh! That’s unimportant. They often don’t in the early stages.” “Dee never will. Never! Never!” The physician smiled tolerantly. “And you’ve got to help her out of it.” The scandalised amazement in his expression “7?”

tempted Pat to mirth, but she restrained herself. “Help her out! In what way, may I ask?” “You needn’t may-I-ask in that hateful tone. You