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 'Not more than five.'

'My watch is run down.'

'There's Miss Bigley's timepiece on the mantel.'

It was strange to think that this was Miss Bigley's house, her clock, her chair, her chaise-longue, her table, her chintzes, and that through her well-scrubbed panes the radiant sun smiled in upon them. Lanice always had the feeling that the formidable editoress was but in the next room or on the stairs, and that at any moment she would look up and see her blue swimming eyes widening as they gazed upon her and the affectionate Mr. Jones.

She could not understand how Jones could brazenly continue his love-making in the presence of his servant, who came and went seemingly on velvet paws. If Anthony's words often chilled her, to an almost greater degree did hers irritate him, but still there was a piquancy in never knowing whether you held in your arms an editoress or the reincarnation of a Persian princess. He realized this affair would end when the book was completed, and he would return to England, and he was afraid that perhaps her naïveté had led her to think they were to marry. Women always thought anything, everything, led to marriage. Before he left, he would break the news to her very gently, and in the meantime he believed he was doing her good rather than harm, getting her out of her emotional shroud of New England ice. He would find another woman, and Lanice—well, she would marry Ripley. Ripley was always dropping veiled hints about this girl, and even urged him not to play