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 ness so increasing that his voice became a little husky. "I thought then that you were a woman who saw everything while looking as though you saw nothing."

But she did not take this as a tribute. Her eyes opened wide; and her lips parted, too, in sudden laughter. "I seem so vacant?" she cried. "That is how I look?"

"You look" he began ardently, and then checked himself. "Ah, Madame Momoro, you might not let me tell you how I think you look! You might say I do not know you well enough."

"So soon I should be saying that to you?" she asked gaily; and to his thrilled delight she added, with a quick flash of her eye to his, "Well, there are nine days left!" Then, as she unfolded the rug that had been about her and rose easily to her fine height, she said: "Do you care enough to know me better to walk with me a little while on this eternity of cycles we call a deck?"

"Do I!" the happy young man exclaimed, though it is possible that he would have preferred to go on knowing her better, seated. She was taller than he and he had to look up to her as they walked.

He had also to lengthen his stride and make it a