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 This done she stepped out on the terrace. Dare was there, leaning against the parapet. He offered her a cigarette and lit it in silence.

"There's a dreadful ordeal ahead of you," said Louise, sending a little cloud of smoke skyward.

"I'm getting used to ordeals," he replied.

"This is a new kind. You have to take the pastor's wife in to dinner."

"I shall ask her to rescue my soul from the devil."

"She will be glad of the occasion."

In his eyes there was a shadow of the glance that had proved epoch-making the day before. "On second thoughts," he added, "I shall do no such thing. The devil is welcome to it." He looked away, and Louise for once could find nothing to say. "Except," Dare finally resumed, "that he won't have it at any price. Neither will God. That leaves me on my own."

"Isn't that" Louise began, in a low voice, then was conscious of a step. Turning, she saw Mrs. Windrom, in purple satin, advancing from the front terrace, pinning to her corsage a pink rose which drew attention to the utterly unflowerlike character of her face. The last rays of the setting sun fell full upon the lenses of the which Louise was once "too damn polite" to smash.

"What have you two got your heads together about?" she inquired with an archness that suited her as little as the rose.

"A plot," Louise replied, holding out a hand to