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 about Pearl and Amy and Minnie, but next to nothing about you. Don't you think that's perverse? My wife is sort of human feuilleton: something new every day."

He was surprised to hear himself using a term which would certainly have conveyed nothing to Pearl or Amy or Minnie, but he knew the allusion had registered.

"I suppose that's the first duty of a wife," Miriam laughed. "Besides, Louise Bruneau is nothing if not original. All her friends recognize that." She patted Louise ever so gently on the shoulder.

The modulation of the voice, the grace of the little pat, the composure, the finely-cut nostrils, the slant of the hat!

They chatted, then Louise started the engine, and in a moment the car was zig-zagging up the long hill that lay between them and the lake.

Louise was conquering an unreasonable pang. To herself she was explaining the freemasonry that existed among people of Keble's and Miss Cread's world; there was some sort of telepathic pass word, she knew not what. It was going to be the Windrom atmosphere all over again: permeated by exotic verbal trifles. But that was what she had bargained for; the stakes were worth the temporary disadvantage. Walter needn't, of course, have sent quite such a perfect specimen.

What "stakes"? Well, surely there were objects to live for that outweighed the significance of petty