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 about those small stockings digging into the cushion that pricked his conscience. "I'm sorry, Molly," he said humbly. "Really I am. I meant to come right back, but I found Cecily bawling her eyes out and I had to stay here until the poor little kid felt better. Come on now, Molly. Forgive me this once, and let's jump back to the gym." He stood beside her, patting her hand.

Now, Molly's feet ached throbbingly. Her head ached. Her back ached from bending at the unnatural dance-angle of the age. She had had five hours' sleep in forty-eight, and she saw herself a woman scorned in favor of a dowdy child. . . . The combination was almost more than flesh and blood could be expected to bear.

"Shut up!" she choked. "Don't speak tome! Don't you ever speak to me again!"

Then Jock felt penitent no longer; only wearied and disinterested. He shrugged his shoulders. "Just as you say."

He sat down several yards from her and, picking up a magazine, began to rustle through it. He thought, "She'll snap out of it in a minute or two. She always does." Presently a page of poetry caught his attention. He hunched forward, his elbows on his knees and his head thrust toward it as though he would dive straight into the printed words. He became absorbed. His eyes grew luminous. Now and then his lips moved, and once they twitched up in his crooked smile, murmuring, "This fellow Sandburg!" He had quite sincerely and artlessly forgotten that Molly was there.

She sat watching him.

After a long time she said, "Jock," and he looked up.

"You're pretending, aren't you?" she asked. Begged, almost.