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 "Be—good for you?" she teased him.

"Aren't I being good for you—a tiny bit?"

He could hold Sophie's hand, but not her thoughts, which were obviously roaming. There was a droop in her lips. He took advantage of the open road and the chauffeur's back to kiss her, deftly. What a lot, he was thinking, one can learn about the language of caresses in one brief hour!

"Tit for tat—a penny for yours," he said finally, concealing a trace of anxiety. Why should her thoughts go so far away?

"Oh mine! There's no charge for them, though if all were known they've cost me enough. . . I was merely thinking, and it's a discouraging sort of thought, that after you've waded through all their systems and philosophies, and tried all their synthetic substitutes, you come back to what you originally suspected; and that is, that it all boils down to—"

"I know—this!" And he kissed her again, gently, ironically, triumphantly, while a lady of Arlington looked on aghast. "I for one don't think it's a bit discouraging."

"That's the discouraging thing about it," said Sophie simply, looking at him wistfully, compassionately, almost the way his mother might have looked. His remark echoed rather emptily in his ears. He felt bumptious and chastened.