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 before him he felt a little nauseated. He would never have believed that the sight of one ordinary little person,—for after all she wasn't so extraordinary,—could filt him at the same time with such a wild uprush of hope and such an utter sense of hopelessness. It was like having your wings clipped within flying distance of heaven.

"There's Oscar Hellgren," said Floss, setting down her cup with a beam of pleasure.

"Who's he?" said Grover.

"The sculptor!" replied Floss, as though anybody ought to know. "He won the prize for a marvellous monument in Bordeaux—soldiers and horses and tanks and everything."

"Isn't that Léon Vaudreuil's sister with him?" asked Grover, to sound Floss.

"Never saw her before," said Floss, going toward the newcomers. "She must be the cutie they're all trying to get away from him."

Grover followed in her wake, but before he could contrive to renew his acquaintance with Olga, she and her Swedish escort were captured by Peñaverde, the painter, and in a moment he found himself in the middle of the big room alone, the most completely lost of all Floss's lost souls.

"You hook like you'd been shot at and missed," said a voice, and he perceived Mamie approaching with languishing gait.