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 "More, Ket, because you can do it."

"I've done it!" he insisted. "This is a pip—a pip, Jo, I tell you. It's way out of the class of anything I've done before. I don't care a damn what you say," he flung at her and arose and walked angrily, on his heels, away from her.

She straightened and sat back, flushed and warm and with her lips atremble as she followed him with her gaze. Why must she try to spur him, she wondered. Why could not she, like the other girls, open her arms for his kiss and clasp? Why must she care so much, and keep him away from her?

He halted before his wall, papered with photographs of his flatterers, of the girls and women who cried "wonderful" and "great" at whatever he did because they cared about nothing but pleasing him so that he would like them and kiss them. He glanced from face to smirking face of his gallery and turned his back to them and gazed at Jo; and the exquisiteness of her, the clear, lovely line of her forehead and face and the quivering lips, which would not cheaply flatter him, stirred him to wish to justify himself.

"I think I've done damn well," he said, injuredly, but no longer accusing her. "With the chance I've had."

"Oh, you have, Ket!"

"Here I come home early to catch you and play that to you, because it was a riot at the Echo and it's the biggest thing I've done; and all you say is, 'It's rotten.

"I didn't."

"You did."

"Did you come home to play it to me, Ket?"

"I've just told you I did," he repeated, softening. "I thought you'd like it."

"And I do."

"You don't—enough," he corrected and picked up the