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 someone may notice. You see, your hands are so large and bony that people notice them, and any one knows that it takes more than one cigarette to give that orangy color."

"You see too damned much," growled Finch. "When you get to school you'll have some of the smugness knocked out of you."

"I dare say," agreed Wake, sadly. "I hope you won't let the other boys bully me, Finch."

"Why, look here, there are five hundred fellows in the school. Do you suppose I can keep an eye on you? I'll never even see you. You'll have to just shift for yourself."

"Oh, I'll manage somehow," said Wake.

Finch thought that Wake would probably be happier at school than he was. He hoped so, for he was very fond of this dark-skinned debonair little brother, so different from himself. In silence he took off his sodden socks, gave his feet a perfunctory rub with a frayed bath-towel and threw it into a corner. His brain was going round like a squirrel in a cage. Finding Renny and Alayne alone in the dark rain-drenched porch had brought something to his mind, reminding him curiously of something. He could not think at first what it was, then he remembered. It was the time he had come upon Renny and the unknown woman in the pine wood.

It was not only finding Renny alone with a woman in a dim and sheltered spot, it was something in his attitude—an air of detached attentiveness, as though he were listening, waiting for something that the woman was to do. Some sort of signal.

Finch could not understand why it had affected him so deeply to discover Renny and Alayne in the porch together, unless it was that it had reminded him of that other time. He had been determined that Meg should