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 with a fond smile which brought out the cold perspiration in beads on the artist's forehead.

"I—I wasn't myself last night," he stammered.

"Now don't sye as you'd bin drinkin', 'Ilary—"

"Of course I hadn't been drinking! I never drink!" cried Hilary Vance indignantly. "At least I never drink too much," he added in a gentler voice.

"No: you was as sober as a judge. I never seed you so serious. An' when you harsked me to be yours, I was that tyken aback you could 'ave knocked me down with a feather," said Ermyntrude; and she bridled again in a way to make the blood run cold.

Hilary Vance grasped his abundant, but crinkly, curls with both hands, and cried in a tone of horror, "I really asked you to be mine?"

"Before witnesses, 'Ilary. Not but what I'd bin expectin' it—for months—ever since I sat to you for them first East-end pictchoors, and you paid me all them attentions. They was most marked."

"You're mistaken, Ermyntrude—quite mistaken. I never paid you any attentions!" cried Hilary Vance in a tone of anguished protest.