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 could know nothing of. She struggled against the hold she felt he had upon her, and her natural egoism resented it. The instinct to submit to him warred bitterly against the desire for liberty and self-assertion. If she could have respected him, as for instance she respected Emerson, the battle would not have been so cruel. Sears Ripley felt her moving restlessly beside him. Never restless himself, he was patient and forgiving with her. He tried to encourage her with the information that the lecture must be nearly over because he now was talking about the French project of building a canal from Port Said to Suez. The best-informed in the audience, realizing the French and English rivalry at Suez, guessed without Jones's saying it that here was the real reason for his five years of freebooting through Arabia. Undoubtedly England had supported him as some sort of super-private agent and was the source of the gold which he had spent so freely.

The applause, muffled by the gloved hands of the gentlemen as well as the ladies, subsided, and Lanice was impatient to be gone. Miss Bigley was running back and forth throughout the audience striving vainly to herd together her ushers and get them into the two sleighs hired for the occasion, and back to her house, and so into their own clothes. The enchanting girls wished to stay for the impromptu reception that followed.

'Will you stop a minute, Miss Bardeen?' said Professor Ripley. 'I see a number of people whom I think you would enjoy.'