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160 "It is a good thing I did not," she said, "or I should have been puffed up. Now, dearest, I must really go to bed. I have an enormous day to-morrow, and there are at least two balls I must go to in the evening."

She paused a moment in front of him, fingering the stud in his shirt. Though the evening had been so successful, and though he was clearly pleased with her, there had been certain moments in the day the memory of which she wanted to expunge completely from his mind. There had been that little passage before dinner; there had been just a shade of friction about her smoking, and about Charlie in this last talk.

"I am so pleased," she said; "and I have had a beautiful birthday. And I am most pleased of all that I have pleased you. I always want that most, dear. And if ever you think me tiresome, or wilful, try to remember that that is the surface only, and deep, deep down There, you will get conceited, too. Don't sit up too late."

"I am coming upstairs immediately," he said.