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 again. “I wish I could have it,” she said with sudden sincerity and longing, quite like a four-year-old.

“Thanks,” he said. “That was quite sincere, too, wasn’t it? Of course you can’t have it, though. You see that, don’t you?”

She was silent. He knew she could see no reason why she shouldn’t have it.

“I guess so,” she agreed at last. “I just thought I’d see, though.”

“Not to overlook any bets?”

“Oh, well, by to-morrow I probably won’t want it, anyway And if I still do, I can get something just as good.”

“You mean,” he amended, “that if you still want it to-morrow, you can get it. Don’t you?”

Her hand, as if it were a separate organism, reached out slowly, stroking the marble. “Why are you so black?” she asked.

“Black?”

“Not your hair and beard. I like your red hair and beard. But you. You are black. I mean” her voice fell and he suggested Soul? “I don’t know what that is,” she stated quietly.

“Neither do I. You might ask your aunt, though. She seems familiar with souls.”

She glanced over her shoulder, showing him her other unequal profile. “Ask her yourself. Here she comes.”

Mrs. Maurier surged her scented upholstered bulk between them. “Wonderful, wonderful,” she was exclaiming in sincere astonishment. “And this” her voice died away and she gazed at the marble, dazed. Mr. Talliaferro echoed her immaculately, taking to himself the showman’s credit.