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 "But I've lived harder—mentally. As a boy I was a sort of prodigy. And prodigies have a way of petering out."

Gritty snuggled closer to him on the settee.

"There are people," he went on, "whose lives are concentrated in the span of a single generation. Sometimes I think I'm one of them."

She placed soft white fingers over his mouth. "Hush! Why, in a year or two when you've got used to your new ideas you'll be all over your blues. Won't you? Say yes."

A maid entered the room carrying a big pasteboard box.

"Hats! Hats!" squealed Gritty, undoing the cord with eager fingers.

She tried them on and forgot everything but the bright portraits she was making of herself before a mirror. Paul found them pretty, but his mind travelled back to a summer morning when he had seen Gritty trying on a leghorn hat trimmed with heliotrope ribbon, whilst Phœbe Meddar stooped to pick up a bouquet of tea-roses.

He departed with a nameless sense of desolation. Gritty was the only friend left—the last on his list of farewells. And for all her amiability she was scarcely more than a makeshift: a misguided, vicious, pleasant, warm-hearted, promiscuous, vain, tender little makeshift.

"Poor kitten," he sighed, as he stepped into the street.