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144 said so to me immediately immediately afterwards. Now I want to ask such heaps of intimate questions."

"You needn't ask the intimate questions," said Maud. "I can give you the intimate answers. I don't think my first—you know—was—was much. It wasn't like this, anyhow. There is nobody else but Charlie. That, frankly, was why I haven't been to see you these two or three weeks. Wasn't it horrible of me? I simply didn't want you."

"And now?" demanded Lucia.

"I am so happy that I want everybody, and you most of all. So I came."

"And you've allowed me to run on about my little wee concerns, while you were bottling this up?" said Lucia. "How could you?"

Maud smiled deep down in her brown eyes.

"Oh, it was such fun," she said. "When you were small, didn't you ever put an arm out of bed on a cold night, to have the joy of putting it back again? I kept myself in the cold just like that, hugging myself to think how nice and warm it would be when I told you. Oh, Lucia, I am so happy—so utterly happy!"

And once again Lucia wondered whether, compared to this, she was happy. This time she knew she was not. And she felt herself envious of her friend's bliss; she wanted it herself.