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 string of her sentence. “You are well, Tommy—or better, of course. I wanted to come to see you, but they wouldn’t let me.”

“Oh yes,” said I, carelessly, “it was nothing. Merely a little fever. I am out again, as you see.”

We three sat there and talked for half an hour or so. Then Chloe looked out yearningly and almost piteously across the ocean. I could see in her sea-blue eyes some deep and intense desire. Devoe, curse him! saw it too.

“What is it?” we asked, in unison.

“Cocoanut-pudding,” said Chloe, pathetically. “I’ve wanted some—oh, so badly, for two days. It’s got beyond a wish; it’s an obsession.”

“The cocoanut season is over,” said Devoe, in that voice of his that gave thrilling interest to his most commonplace words. “I hardly think one could be found in Mojada. The natives never use them except when they are green and the milk is fresh. They sell all the ripe ones to the fruiterers.”

“Wouldn’t a broiled lobster or a Welsh rabbit do as well?” I remarked, with the engaging idiocy of a pernicious-fever convalescent.

Chloe came as near to pouting as a sweet Rh