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RV 172 prettily, on a linen hemstitched cloth, and while the toast was finishing, arranged a bouquet of dwarf chrysanthemums in a tiny vase. Ferrier's words returned hatefully to his mind. Was Blanche Rader "that way with every one?" He preferred to think that only for him had she ever arranged a little bunch of flowers. She sat down with him at the table, and made him uneasy, not eating, but leaning her chin on her hand, keeping her large eyelids persistently down, drawing patterns on the cloth with her forefinger. He ate hastily, for he sensed a question in the wind. He did not escape it. "Are you going to be gone long?" she asked, still intent on her moving finger point.

"All day."

"Oh!" Her eyes came up with a flash. "Are you coming back?"

"Why, of course. Did you think—"

Her lips parted, growing a little more rosy. "I thought you had had bad news last night, that had called you away." Bad news, indeed, he thought, but of a sort to make him stick the tighter. She was blushing faintly. "I wouldn't have come down-I mean I wouldn't have asked you" She laughed at her own embarrassment. "I didn't mean to be so inquisitive."

"All women are," Carron declared rising.