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 "Eden, I sometimes wish you had gone on with your profession. You would at least have been sure of it. You would have been your own master—"

"Dear," he interrupted, "wish me an ill that I deserve, trample on me, crush me, be savage, but don't wish I were a member of that stuffy, stultifying, atrophying profession. It was Meggie who put me into it, when I was too young and weak to resist. But when I found out the effect it was having on me, thank God I had the grit to chuck it. My darling, just imagine your little white rabbit spending his young life nosing into all sorts of mouldy lawsuits, and filthy divorce cases, and actions for damages to the great toe of a grocer by a motor driven by the President of the Society for the Suppression of Vice! Think of it!" He rumpled his fair hair and glared at her. "Honestly, I shouldn't survive the strain a week."

Alayne took his head to her breast and stroked it in her soft, rather sedate fashion.

"Don't, darling. You make me feel a positive ogre. And there's no hurry. I've drawn almost nothing from my account yet."

"I should hope not!" he exclaimed savagely.

She asked after a moment: "Will the books from Mr. Cory come straight here or shall we have to go to town for them?"

"It depends upon whether they are held up in the customs. If they are, we'll go in together for them. It will be a little change for you. God knows, you don't get much change."

They were in their own room. He was at his desk, and she standing beside him. He began searching through a box of stamps for a stamp that was not stuck to another one. He was mixing them up thoroughly, partially separating one from another, then in despair