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 her violet eyes, but you have brains and character. I made up my mind long ago that while men like you existed in the outer world I would remain a virgin so long as I remained in Kansas City.

She had, it appeared, no reason to believe or even to hope that an immediate meeting could be brought about. Indeed it is likely that she had regarded him as a kind of symbol rather than an actuality of flesh and blood, a symbol of escape. The clearest fact in her extraordinary mind had been that it would be quite impossible in the present or the future—what small portion of future was left to a girl of seventeen—to discover any such paragon in Kansas City. She must, she had decided, travel. That, fortunately, was possible of accomplishment. Her parents were in affluent circumstances and she had long possessed an adequate bank account of her own. Flight then was practical, but flight with no definite end in view had seemed ridiculous.

Suppose, I told myself, I should never discover the actual man I am seeking, then my act would not be justified. It would be horrible to crawl back to Kansas City, to be obliged to acknowledge myself a failure. It was necessary then to invent another pretext. The insistent local harping on my beauty furnished me with a cue. It reminded me of the name