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 "Do you know who it is?" asked Miriam, amused at the startled look in her companion's eyes.

"No, do you? She looks Japanese."

"Merely East Side. It's Myra Pelter, the actress we're to see to-night in 'Three Blind Mice'."

Louise yielded to a temptation to turn and stare. "Now there you are, Miriam: the reductio ad absurdum of hectic shopping and beautifying. Isn't it enough to drive one into a nunnery! I'm glad we're on our way to the seashore, where there are at least 'such quantities of sand' and sky and water."

Miriam smiled doubtfully, a little wearily. "There will be quantities of transparent stockings and French perfumes, too, my dear."

"Well, I like frivolities, as such,—but only as such, mind you. From now on I ignore them the minute they try to be anything more. I think I'm going in for human souls. I'm already tired of looking at people as Adèle looks at them, or as if they were books in a shop window. I'm going to open a few and see what they're all about. . . . The worst of it is, you can't look at the last chapter of people and see how they end. You can only read them, as you can only read yourself, in maddeningly short instalments. They're always on the brink of new doings when you come to a 'to be continued'. And I've reached a point where I must have gists and summaries, must see what things are leading to, what's being driven at in this infuriating universe,—this multi-verse."